In my last post, I outlined my understanding of a fairly recent movement in Christian theology called "the missional church." In this post, I'll give my evaluation of that movement. Once again, please note that I do not intend to criticize any specific people--I'm interested in the ideas behind the movement. Any apparent disrespect should be regarded as unintentional.
It took me a while to think through the many facets of the missional community church model, and then to puzzle out which belonged to missional theology as a whole and which belonged only to this particular expression. I may still be misunderstanding some of the finer points. But here's what I've concluded so far:
1. The basic missional principle of approaching local outreach in the same way as global missions (taking the gospel to the people rather than assuming that they will come to us) is sound. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20, and Mark 16:15) says "go," and it doesn't matter if the going is across the street or across the globe. Unlike the nation of Israel, the Church does not inhabit a fixed geopolitical location to which all nations can come to learn about God (the Promised Land was in the middle of the main trade route between Egypt and the other Mesopotamian states). The Church, the one people of God, is now by God's grand design scattered throughout the nations. We are to go to the people.
2. The basic missional principle of recalling all members of the Church to the Great Commission and to a renewed sense of urgency for reaching the people they already know is also sound. Complacency is always a temptation, and many of us in the evangelical churches are content to write a monthly check to a missions organization and call it "participation in the gospel." The megachurch movement has, to some degree, fostered the culture of Christian consumerism mentioned in the previous post. When your church can afford to staff all its ministries with paid professionals who will put on a well-polished show every week, parishioners get the idea that they don't need to do anything--so they don't. We would benefit from thinking of ourselves as missionaries as the people with whom we have contact, whether or not they eventually come to faith.
3. Focusing on building authentic community within the local church is a necessity. It's far too easy for Christians who are struggling with serious sins to fall through the cracks when all they do is show up for a Sunday service (and maybe even a mid-week Bible study) that is attended by other Christians who think that they, too, have to appear as though they have all their ducks in a row. The world calls this hypocrisy, and it's one of the primary factors that contributes to a disinterest in church among non-believers. On a similar note, in this same environment, it's far too easy for those of us who may not struggle with any of the "big" sins to sit back and ignore the progress that we could and should be making ourselves. Wouldn't it be better for everyone--believers and non-believers--if we dropped the masks and got down to the business of helping each other overcome our struggles and live as we ought to live? What happened to "Just As I Am?"
4. Having said the above, I find that the missional community model is too narrowly local in its focus. As stated in the previous post, most missional theologians and church leaders use the term "the church scattered" to refer to the sending out of their members into their local spheres of influence during the week. I, however, take a broader view of "the church scattered--" I believe it best refers to the fact that the people of God now live in many nations across the globe as opposed to one, poised to take the message to the people who need to hear it. Sure, that starts at the local level, but God's plan is bigger than my local community. The missional community view risks losing the bigger picture of God's plan to glorify Himself in all the world for the snapshot view of what God is doing in my neighborhood, as if these were the only people who mattered. It also has a tendency to create local congregations who think they are alone on the mission--that "the Church gathered" is just them and no one else, and that's a far cry from Pentecost, in my opinion. Furthermore, the Great Commission tells us to "go and make disciples of all nations," and Acts 1:8 reveals that God intends the gospel to spread outside of Jerusalem (our local neighborhoods and people who are like us) to "Judea and Samaria (those nearby with whom we have either no affinity or open hositility)" and "to the ends of the earth." Yet there's little to no talk about world missions among missional community churches. One leader in the movement explained that Acts 1:8 tells us that we are to take the gospel first to our local community, then to Judea and Samaria, and then (and only then) to the ends of the earth, and that the missional movement was designed to correct the "unnecessary and unhelpful divorce of Jesus' mission from our local context" by refocusing our efforts on this prioritized list. Furthermore, he said that we had no business doing international missions until the American Church starts reaching its own people again. He went on to say that if we were engaged in the local mission, it would spur us to get involved in missions beyond our own doorsteps, but he implied that the time for that was much further down the road. I have several issues with this explanation. First, I just can't see Acts 1:8 as a "list of priorities." Yes, the revelation was given to the Jews first, but God never intended for it to stop there, and the early church certainly didn't wait until they had reached everyone in Jerusalem before they took the message outside of the city. In fact, they had to be pushed to take the next step by the application of persecution (cf. Acts 8:1-4). And Jesus himself traveled between Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the surrounding Gentile territories simultaneously. Acts 1:8 could be taken in one of two ways: it could, I think, be interpreted as a promise (the "predictive future") to the still bewildered disciples hiding in Jerusalem after Jesus' ascension: something along the lines of, "You may not believe this now, but the Holy Spirit is coming, and when He does, you're going to be transformed into bold witnesses who won't just stay in this city--you're going to take the message to the ends of the known world! How about that?" Or it could be a command ("the imperatival future"), but nowhere does the text imply that the local mission takes priority over the global mission. Second, when I look at the global situation today, I see doors opening in countries that have been closed (the so-called "creative access countries") for centuries. Do we really want to tell God, "Sorry, we don't have our local act together just yet. Can you keep those doors open until we do?" Third, isn't an exclusive focus on local missions simply swapping one "unnecessary and unhelpful divorce" for another? Overcorrection is rarely the answer--we must find a way to call the Church to fulfilling all parts of the Great Commission simultaneously. As Bill Hamel, the president of the EFCA put it in Columbus in 2010, it's both/and, not either/or.
5. Finally, I have a problem with the missional community model's approach to discipleship. I will grant that most churches probably have more member-centered programming than is absolutely necessary for carrying out the mission of the Church, and that many modern Christians are more interested in what they can get out of church participation than in what they can contribute, but again, I see an overcorrection in the "bare bones" approach taken by missional community churches. The Great Commission tells us not just to preach the gospel to all nations, but to "make disciples" and to "teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you." The behavioral component of discipleship is important, and accountability really is best fostered in small groups of people who are completely honest with one another, as the movement points out, but there's a teaching component to discipleship, too--you can't "obey everything that [Jesus has] commanded" if you don't know what that entails. And you shouldn't rely on your leaders to unpack all the details for you--that's how cults get started. We need to be teaching church members, particularly new Christians, how to read, study, and apply the Bible for themselves (and I would note here that traditional churches fail on this point as often as missional churches do). As a teacher, I worry that new Christians and unbelievers who are exposed to the missional community model will see that the pastor does all the teaching (the community groups focus on application and what they got out of the sermon) and will think that you have to have a seminary degree in order to read and understand Scripture--and that is a tragedy. How do we expect to break the consumer mentality among churchgoers fully if we keep them dependent on the leadership for substantive teaching?
Is your church "missional?" I hope it is. All congregations need to keep the Great Commission fixed clearly in sight. I hope your members have a sense of their own role in God's mission, and that they don't just sit back and wait to be ministered to (although we all have times when we need that). But I also hope that they have a sense for just how big God's plan is, and how their local congregation fits into the one people of God. I hope that they "go" to their neighbors and look for ways to make the gospel known throughout the rest of the world. I hope that they desire to study the Bible for themselves and that the pastor is a faithful teacher. I hope your church is both/and, rather than either/or.
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Is Your Church "Missional?" Part I: An Introduction to Missional Theology
A little over a year ago, I was introduced to one of the trendiest words in contemporary theology. That word is "missional," and it is most often used to describe a "new" way of thinking about church life that emphasizes a conscious return to the mission of the Church to reach people with the gospel, instead of focusing too much attention on programs for those who are already part of the faith community.
At least, that's the broad definition of the term. I first encountered this concept while representing our local church at the 2010 EFCA annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Some of the presenters at the meeting--especially the younger guys who were working in youth and campus ministry--used the term while describing the success they had had when they shifted their ministry focus from trying to attract students to their programs to taking the gospel to young people wherever they were at. Many in the millennial generation, they said, would never set foot inside a church, but were interested in getting to know people who were clearly interested in them. The model made sense to me, but as the conference progressed, I noticed that other leaders in the denomination were suspicious of or openly hostile toward "missional" ministry. I didn't have room in my schedule to attend the information session on missional theology, so I left the conference more than a little confused as to the nature of the controversy.
A few months later, our congregation began the process of planting a church in downtown D.C. We teamed up with a young pastor who felt called to church planting, and who had a clear vision for the new community in the District. This vision was informed heavily by a particular outworking of missional theology called the "missional community" model. Over the past few months, I've had a chance to evaluate this model, to understand (finally) why the term "missional" sets some church leaders' teeth on edge, and to reach my own conclusions about the movement. Please note that I do not intend, in any way, to criticize the pastor of the church plant--planting a church requires a clear vision of who your target demographic is and how to reach them, and he has studied the neighborhood far more closely than I. My intent is to use this space to explore and analyze the ideas driving the movement. Also, note that the movement is still fairly young and has a fair amount of diversity--others may have had different experiences with missional community churches which would lead them to define the movement differently. In part I, I'll explain the model as I understand it, and in part II, I'll give my analysis.
The "missional community" model of organizing the church is based on two assumptions. The first is a belief that the modern evangelical church has become too inwardly focused (missional theologians often refer to this as a "culture of discipleship") and has neglected the basic command of the Great Commission, which is to reach unbelievers with the good news of Jesus Christ. We have developed a consumer mentality toward church membership and have focused so much on our own spiritual growth that we have forgotten that we are to be missionaries to those around us (our "spheres of influence"). The second is a belief that post-postmoderns (no one is quite sure how to refer to them yet) are more interested in forging authentic relationships than they are in subscribing to a set of religious beliefs. Many of them have either had negative experiences with organized religion and so are suspicious of creeds, or are relativists who don't see the need to profess allegiance to one religion over another. But in our media-saturated, frantic society, everyone wants to belong. If we can invite these people to our homes to see how Christians genuinely care for, invest in, and help each other out, some of them will be intrigued enough to consider the church's message. The catch phrase for this assumption is "belonging before belief."
Building off these assumptions, "missional community" churches pare their programming offerings down to the bare bones--childcare during the worship service, perhaps an impromptu women's gathering or men's prayer group--and focus instead on small community groups that meet throughout the week to share a meal, keep tabs on members' needs and encourage each other to "stay on mission" by looking for opportunities to reach out to unbelievers in their workplaces and by living lives of obedience. Community groups--often referred to as "the church scattered"--are also intended to serve as a gateway to church life for the unbelievers the members are witnessing to--they are supposed to be places where non-Christians can see (and be attracted to) the genuine community enjoyed amongst Christians, and where they can safely ask any questions they have. Community groups usually set aside some time for Bible discussion--frequently relating to the sermon heard earlier in the week at the corporate worship gathering--but the emphasis is on application rather than on in-depth exploration of the text. Members are encouraged to invite their non-Christian friends and contacts to community group meetings rather than to the Sunday services, because so many people have negative perceptions of church services, and because it's too easy to blend into the crowd and leave without really connecting to anyone.
Churches that employ the missional community model do have corporate worship gatherings (referred to as "the church gathered"), and these are where the in-depth teaching occurs. Worship styles vary from congregation to congregation, but sermon styles are (I think) fairly consistent: missional pastors prefer to preach expositionally ("verse-by-verse"), to take small chunks of text at a time (it was a rare week when the pastor of the church plant covered more than 6 verses at once), and to preach for longer lengths of time than most traditional church pastors (or at least, this was the case in the church plant). Teaching and worship take place in the corporate gathering; discipleship (application of the teaching) and evangelism take place in the community groups.
That's my version of "Missional Theology 101." Next time, I'll post my evaluation of its main tenets.
At least, that's the broad definition of the term. I first encountered this concept while representing our local church at the 2010 EFCA annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Some of the presenters at the meeting--especially the younger guys who were working in youth and campus ministry--used the term while describing the success they had had when they shifted their ministry focus from trying to attract students to their programs to taking the gospel to young people wherever they were at. Many in the millennial generation, they said, would never set foot inside a church, but were interested in getting to know people who were clearly interested in them. The model made sense to me, but as the conference progressed, I noticed that other leaders in the denomination were suspicious of or openly hostile toward "missional" ministry. I didn't have room in my schedule to attend the information session on missional theology, so I left the conference more than a little confused as to the nature of the controversy.
A few months later, our congregation began the process of planting a church in downtown D.C. We teamed up with a young pastor who felt called to church planting, and who had a clear vision for the new community in the District. This vision was informed heavily by a particular outworking of missional theology called the "missional community" model. Over the past few months, I've had a chance to evaluate this model, to understand (finally) why the term "missional" sets some church leaders' teeth on edge, and to reach my own conclusions about the movement. Please note that I do not intend, in any way, to criticize the pastor of the church plant--planting a church requires a clear vision of who your target demographic is and how to reach them, and he has studied the neighborhood far more closely than I. My intent is to use this space to explore and analyze the ideas driving the movement. Also, note that the movement is still fairly young and has a fair amount of diversity--others may have had different experiences with missional community churches which would lead them to define the movement differently. In part I, I'll explain the model as I understand it, and in part II, I'll give my analysis.
The "missional community" model of organizing the church is based on two assumptions. The first is a belief that the modern evangelical church has become too inwardly focused (missional theologians often refer to this as a "culture of discipleship") and has neglected the basic command of the Great Commission, which is to reach unbelievers with the good news of Jesus Christ. We have developed a consumer mentality toward church membership and have focused so much on our own spiritual growth that we have forgotten that we are to be missionaries to those around us (our "spheres of influence"). The second is a belief that post-postmoderns (no one is quite sure how to refer to them yet) are more interested in forging authentic relationships than they are in subscribing to a set of religious beliefs. Many of them have either had negative experiences with organized religion and so are suspicious of creeds, or are relativists who don't see the need to profess allegiance to one religion over another. But in our media-saturated, frantic society, everyone wants to belong. If we can invite these people to our homes to see how Christians genuinely care for, invest in, and help each other out, some of them will be intrigued enough to consider the church's message. The catch phrase for this assumption is "belonging before belief."
Building off these assumptions, "missional community" churches pare their programming offerings down to the bare bones--childcare during the worship service, perhaps an impromptu women's gathering or men's prayer group--and focus instead on small community groups that meet throughout the week to share a meal, keep tabs on members' needs and encourage each other to "stay on mission" by looking for opportunities to reach out to unbelievers in their workplaces and by living lives of obedience. Community groups--often referred to as "the church scattered"--are also intended to serve as a gateway to church life for the unbelievers the members are witnessing to--they are supposed to be places where non-Christians can see (and be attracted to) the genuine community enjoyed amongst Christians, and where they can safely ask any questions they have. Community groups usually set aside some time for Bible discussion--frequently relating to the sermon heard earlier in the week at the corporate worship gathering--but the emphasis is on application rather than on in-depth exploration of the text. Members are encouraged to invite their non-Christian friends and contacts to community group meetings rather than to the Sunday services, because so many people have negative perceptions of church services, and because it's too easy to blend into the crowd and leave without really connecting to anyone.
Churches that employ the missional community model do have corporate worship gatherings (referred to as "the church gathered"), and these are where the in-depth teaching occurs. Worship styles vary from congregation to congregation, but sermon styles are (I think) fairly consistent: missional pastors prefer to preach expositionally ("verse-by-verse"), to take small chunks of text at a time (it was a rare week when the pastor of the church plant covered more than 6 verses at once), and to preach for longer lengths of time than most traditional church pastors (or at least, this was the case in the church plant). Teaching and worship take place in the corporate gathering; discipleship (application of the teaching) and evangelism take place in the community groups.
That's my version of "Missional Theology 101." Next time, I'll post my evaluation of its main tenets.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Tenebrae: the Service of Shadows
The older I get, the more I find myself drawn to worship services that have lots of liturgical or symbolic elements (it might also be because I've spent the past seven years studying monasticism at a Catholic school). So when the opportunity arose Wednesday night to attend a traditional tenebrae service at a local Episcopal church, I took it.
Tenebrae is Latin for "shadows," and a tenebrae service is a visual and auditory reflection on the events of Good Friday (Tenebrae services used to be held on Good Friday, but because the Catholic Church does not allow Mass to be said on this day, most Catholic churches hold their tenebrae services on Maundy Thursday instead--even though a tenebrae is not a Mass. I don't know if a similar protocol exists in the Episcopal Church, nor do I know why this particular congregation chose to hold theirs on Wednesday.). At the start of the service, all of the candles on the altar and the hearse (the triangular-shaped candelabrum--I had to look this term up when I got home) are lit, and the rest of the sanctuary is partially lit. As the service progresses through a series of readings and choral responses, the candles and lights are gradually extinguished, symbolizing the growing darkness of sin in the world and the midday darkness that "covered the land" for three hours leading up to Christ's death (cf. Mark 15:33).
The readings for the service consisted of the first 14 verses of the book of Lamentations and several Psalms of lament and judgment. Following each cycle of readings, the cantor responded with "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return to the Lord your God." As the lights got dimmer and dimmer, the Psalmist's despair grew increasingly evident. I found the reading of Psalm 77 to be particularly evocative. In the middle of this psalm, we read: "Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has His steadfast love forever ceased? Are His promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His compassion (vv. 7-9; ESV)?" It was easy to imagine what Jesus' followers might have been thinking as they watched the events of the crucifixion unfold: "We thought this was the real deal. What happens now?"
When all the lights have been turned off and all the candles except for the "Christ candle" at the center of the hearse have been extinguished, there is a final reading, and the acolytes remove the Christ candle from the stand and hide it from view, symbolizing the moment of Jesus' death. In total darkness, the congregation recites the Lord's prayer and the cantor reads Psalm 51, the lament on the Psalmist's personal sin that has so often been set to music. After a final prayer, the acolytes drop or slam shut a heavy book or make some other "great noise" that represents the earthquake mentioned in Matthew 27:51 (I have no idea what produced the noise at the service I attended; even though I knew it was coming, it was still loud and sudden enough to startle me) and then return the Christ candle--still lit--to the hearse so that the congregation has just enough light to leave the sanctuary in silence.
A tenebrae service isn't all gloom and doom, however. The psalms that are read are psalms of judgment and lament, but they all--even Psalm 77--end on a note of hope and faith that God will keep His promises to redeem and restore. Moreover, the final reading before the church is plunged into total darkness is the Song of Zechariah from Luke 1, which ends with the line "...to give light unto those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace (Lk 1:79)." And the Christ candle's return to the stand at the end of the service is a reminder to all that the Light of the World could not be extinguished forever--Easter morning is coming.
I'm glad I finally got a chance to experience a tenebrae service, even if it wasn't actually on Good Friday. I could wish that the church had provided copies of the lyrics of some of the hymns that the choir song, since they were all in Latin and although I read the language, I don't have a very good ear for discerning words in songs (even in English). But the symbolism was every bit as rich as I had expected. I'd like to attend an Easter vigil service someday, too, but that one's going to be tricky since we have so many responsibilities at our own church on Easter Sunday and need to be reasonably awake and alert.
Have a blessed Easter, everyone.
Tenebrae is Latin for "shadows," and a tenebrae service is a visual and auditory reflection on the events of Good Friday (Tenebrae services used to be held on Good Friday, but because the Catholic Church does not allow Mass to be said on this day, most Catholic churches hold their tenebrae services on Maundy Thursday instead--even though a tenebrae is not a Mass. I don't know if a similar protocol exists in the Episcopal Church, nor do I know why this particular congregation chose to hold theirs on Wednesday.). At the start of the service, all of the candles on the altar and the hearse (the triangular-shaped candelabrum--I had to look this term up when I got home) are lit, and the rest of the sanctuary is partially lit. As the service progresses through a series of readings and choral responses, the candles and lights are gradually extinguished, symbolizing the growing darkness of sin in the world and the midday darkness that "covered the land" for three hours leading up to Christ's death (cf. Mark 15:33).
The readings for the service consisted of the first 14 verses of the book of Lamentations and several Psalms of lament and judgment. Following each cycle of readings, the cantor responded with "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return to the Lord your God." As the lights got dimmer and dimmer, the Psalmist's despair grew increasingly evident. I found the reading of Psalm 77 to be particularly evocative. In the middle of this psalm, we read: "Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has His steadfast love forever ceased? Are His promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His compassion (vv. 7-9; ESV)?" It was easy to imagine what Jesus' followers might have been thinking as they watched the events of the crucifixion unfold: "We thought this was the real deal. What happens now?"
When all the lights have been turned off and all the candles except for the "Christ candle" at the center of the hearse have been extinguished, there is a final reading, and the acolytes remove the Christ candle from the stand and hide it from view, symbolizing the moment of Jesus' death. In total darkness, the congregation recites the Lord's prayer and the cantor reads Psalm 51, the lament on the Psalmist's personal sin that has so often been set to music. After a final prayer, the acolytes drop or slam shut a heavy book or make some other "great noise" that represents the earthquake mentioned in Matthew 27:51 (I have no idea what produced the noise at the service I attended; even though I knew it was coming, it was still loud and sudden enough to startle me) and then return the Christ candle--still lit--to the hearse so that the congregation has just enough light to leave the sanctuary in silence.
A tenebrae service isn't all gloom and doom, however. The psalms that are read are psalms of judgment and lament, but they all--even Psalm 77--end on a note of hope and faith that God will keep His promises to redeem and restore. Moreover, the final reading before the church is plunged into total darkness is the Song of Zechariah from Luke 1, which ends with the line "...to give light unto those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace (Lk 1:79)." And the Christ candle's return to the stand at the end of the service is a reminder to all that the Light of the World could not be extinguished forever--Easter morning is coming.
I'm glad I finally got a chance to experience a tenebrae service, even if it wasn't actually on Good Friday. I could wish that the church had provided copies of the lyrics of some of the hymns that the choir song, since they were all in Latin and although I read the language, I don't have a very good ear for discerning words in songs (even in English). But the symbolism was every bit as rich as I had expected. I'd like to attend an Easter vigil service someday, too, but that one's going to be tricky since we have so many responsibilities at our own church on Easter Sunday and need to be reasonably awake and alert.
Have a blessed Easter, everyone.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Spring Break: Relics and Reliquaries in Baltimore
Spring break was almost a month ago, and I took advantage of the time off to drive up to Baltimore to see a special exhibit on medieval relics and reliquaries at the Walters Art Museum. I invited a friend of mine who is an art conservator to go with me, because driving the I-95 corridor between DC and Baltimore is much more bearable with company, and I thought she would find the exhibit interesting.
The drive up actually wasn't bad--the only anomaly was the speeding truck with "infectious medical waste/chemotherapeutic waste" emblazoned on its side--and with the help of the GPS device, we found the museum without any trouble. The parking garage, however, was a different story. Instead of giving us a ticket at the entrance, the machine spat out a nickel-sized orange plastic disc called a "chip coin." Neither of us had ever seen anything like it before, and we weren't sure what we were supposed to do with it. Signs near the elevator informed us that we had two options: we could insert the "chip coin" into a machine on the ground floor of the garage upon our return, pay the required amount, and then insert the coin into the exit gate within 10 minutes, or we could proceed directly to the exit gate, insert the chip coin and pay by credit card. I put the device into a zippered compartment in my handbag (it was alarmingly small and I worried about losing it) and we went on our way.
The exhibit was very well done, and included Christian relics and reliquaries from Late Antiquity (roughly the 3rd through the 5th or 6th centuries, depending on which event you choose to mark its end) to the modern era. The curators did a good job of highlighting the transition from late Roman amulets and charms to early Christian relics, and I got a chance to try out my rusty inscription-deciphering skills (I did pretty well, which was a relief) on several of the displays.
For me, the highlights of the exhibit were a late Roman reliquary that had a hole in one side into which oil would be poured, and two seventh-century Irish bell-shaped reliquaries. The former was interesting because it answered a question I'd had since reading the Travels of Egeria in a class on Medieval Pilgrimage and Crusade several years ago. In her travelogue, Egeria mentions a particular type of reliquary into which pilgrims could pour oil and receive the same oil back after it had come into contact with the holy relics inside. The pilgrims would bottle up this oil and take it home with them as souvenirs. I always wondered what one of these reliquaries would have looked like, and now that I've seen this exhibit, I understand how the process worked. The bell reliquaries were interesting because they are from the time period that I am specializing in and because they are extremely rare. When the Vikings invaded Ireland in the 9th century, they scooped up all the decorative objects they could find--anything that looked like it could be melted down or stripped down to recover precious metals. Most of the objects that were produced have been lost, and it was exciting to see two that have been recovered.
I also learned a few surprising things--which is why I go to these exhibits in the first place. For example:
1. One of the relics on display portrayed Pope Gregory I's "vision of the transformation of the host [into the body of Christ]." Gregory I is one of the two seventh-century churchmen I'm researching for my dissertation, so I'veread slogged through several of his major works, and read three biographical accounts. I haven't encountered this vision in any of them, and all I've been able to find online so far is a reference to a 17th-century depiction of the event by a Mexican artist. I've made myself a note to come back to this question after the semester ends in a few weeks.
2. Relics and reliquaries aren't exclusive to the religious sphere. The exhibit also displayed a couple of secular reliquaries that enshrined the court documents of popular French kings. When you think about it, we've done the same kind of thing by preserving the original copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence in the National Archives.
3. In the high middle ages, it was common for pilgrims to receive medallions or badges either at the beginning of their pilgrimage (thus certifying their status as a pilgrim and entitling them to special treatment along the way) or at the end, as a souvenir. These medallions were inscribed with symbols of the saint or shrine visited and became collector's items. When I saw them in the display case, I immediately thought of the colorful metal volksmarch badges on my father-in-law's walking stick. He participated in several volksmarches while he was stationed in Germany, and in a way, it's the same kind of idea--you sign up for a non-competitive walking event of a fixed distance (either for health or recreation), and you receive a commemorative medallion upon completion of the course. I'm now wondering if the origins of volksmarching can be traced to late medieval pilgrimage in some way. Think about it: by the late middle ages, unscrupulous travelers were casting a shadow of suspicion over the practice of pilgrimage, and large segments of Germany--the country in which the volksmarch originated--had embraced Protestantism, which denied the value of relics, shrines and pilgrimages. Did the civil authorities need an outlet for people who wished to travel? I suspect that this will be a dead-end (I think the origins of volksmarching are too late to fit into this thesis), but I may look into the question when I get a break from other projects.
To return to the saga of the "chip coin:" we walked back to the parking garage and decided to try the walk-up machine on the ground floor. We fed the coin into the machine, and my friend followed the on-screen instructions, only to get an error message; the machine had apparently decided that it didn't want to read credit cards that day. We called over to the attendant in the office across from the elevator to ask for help but couldn't understand his answer. The only option left was to try paying at the exit gate, so that's what we decided to do. We found the exit (one of the narrowest alleys I've ever seen--I had to do a three-point turn just to get out of the gate) and went through the drill again. The machine accepted the coin but wouldn't read the card. After two or three attempts, we finally figured out that the card reader was the other slot--the one that looked like the receipt printer--and we were on our way. I was glad there were no other cars behind me at the exit!
In spite of the cold weather, a bad sinus infection, and the wreck that added 40 minutes to the drive home, the excursion was enjoyable. I may just have to make a return trip for the closing day lecture (on the Book of Kells!) on May 15--it would be a fitting way to celebrate the end of the semester.
The drive up actually wasn't bad--the only anomaly was the speeding truck with "infectious medical waste/chemotherapeutic waste" emblazoned on its side--and with the help of the GPS device, we found the museum without any trouble. The parking garage, however, was a different story. Instead of giving us a ticket at the entrance, the machine spat out a nickel-sized orange plastic disc called a "chip coin." Neither of us had ever seen anything like it before, and we weren't sure what we were supposed to do with it. Signs near the elevator informed us that we had two options: we could insert the "chip coin" into a machine on the ground floor of the garage upon our return, pay the required amount, and then insert the coin into the exit gate within 10 minutes, or we could proceed directly to the exit gate, insert the chip coin and pay by credit card. I put the device into a zippered compartment in my handbag (it was alarmingly small and I worried about losing it) and we went on our way.
The exhibit was very well done, and included Christian relics and reliquaries from Late Antiquity (roughly the 3rd through the 5th or 6th centuries, depending on which event you choose to mark its end) to the modern era. The curators did a good job of highlighting the transition from late Roman amulets and charms to early Christian relics, and I got a chance to try out my rusty inscription-deciphering skills (I did pretty well, which was a relief) on several of the displays.
For me, the highlights of the exhibit were a late Roman reliquary that had a hole in one side into which oil would be poured, and two seventh-century Irish bell-shaped reliquaries. The former was interesting because it answered a question I'd had since reading the Travels of Egeria in a class on Medieval Pilgrimage and Crusade several years ago. In her travelogue, Egeria mentions a particular type of reliquary into which pilgrims could pour oil and receive the same oil back after it had come into contact with the holy relics inside. The pilgrims would bottle up this oil and take it home with them as souvenirs. I always wondered what one of these reliquaries would have looked like, and now that I've seen this exhibit, I understand how the process worked. The bell reliquaries were interesting because they are from the time period that I am specializing in and because they are extremely rare. When the Vikings invaded Ireland in the 9th century, they scooped up all the decorative objects they could find--anything that looked like it could be melted down or stripped down to recover precious metals. Most of the objects that were produced have been lost, and it was exciting to see two that have been recovered.
I also learned a few surprising things--which is why I go to these exhibits in the first place. For example:
1. One of the relics on display portrayed Pope Gregory I's "vision of the transformation of the host [into the body of Christ]." Gregory I is one of the two seventh-century churchmen I'm researching for my dissertation, so I've
2. Relics and reliquaries aren't exclusive to the religious sphere. The exhibit also displayed a couple of secular reliquaries that enshrined the court documents of popular French kings. When you think about it, we've done the same kind of thing by preserving the original copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence in the National Archives.
3. In the high middle ages, it was common for pilgrims to receive medallions or badges either at the beginning of their pilgrimage (thus certifying their status as a pilgrim and entitling them to special treatment along the way) or at the end, as a souvenir. These medallions were inscribed with symbols of the saint or shrine visited and became collector's items. When I saw them in the display case, I immediately thought of the colorful metal volksmarch badges on my father-in-law's walking stick. He participated in several volksmarches while he was stationed in Germany, and in a way, it's the same kind of idea--you sign up for a non-competitive walking event of a fixed distance (either for health or recreation), and you receive a commemorative medallion upon completion of the course. I'm now wondering if the origins of volksmarching can be traced to late medieval pilgrimage in some way. Think about it: by the late middle ages, unscrupulous travelers were casting a shadow of suspicion over the practice of pilgrimage, and large segments of Germany--the country in which the volksmarch originated--had embraced Protestantism, which denied the value of relics, shrines and pilgrimages. Did the civil authorities need an outlet for people who wished to travel? I suspect that this will be a dead-end (I think the origins of volksmarching are too late to fit into this thesis), but I may look into the question when I get a break from other projects.
To return to the saga of the "chip coin:" we walked back to the parking garage and decided to try the walk-up machine on the ground floor. We fed the coin into the machine, and my friend followed the on-screen instructions, only to get an error message; the machine had apparently decided that it didn't want to read credit cards that day. We called over to the attendant in the office across from the elevator to ask for help but couldn't understand his answer. The only option left was to try paying at the exit gate, so that's what we decided to do. We found the exit (one of the narrowest alleys I've ever seen--I had to do a three-point turn just to get out of the gate) and went through the drill again. The machine accepted the coin but wouldn't read the card. After two or three attempts, we finally figured out that the card reader was the other slot--the one that looked like the receipt printer--and we were on our way. I was glad there were no other cars behind me at the exit!
In spite of the cold weather, a bad sinus infection, and the wreck that added 40 minutes to the drive home, the excursion was enjoyable. I may just have to make a return trip for the closing day lecture (on the Book of Kells!) on May 15--it would be a fitting way to celebrate the end of the semester.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Preventing Plagiarism, Part III: High Motivation
So far I've addressed two of the three components of the "plagiarism prevention plan" presented at last month's faculty workshop. This week I'll discuss the third component: high motivation.
The theory is simple: the more motivated your students are, the more interested they will be in the content of your course, and the more likely they will be to complete the assignments themselves. They will want to learn, and they will realize at some level that plagiarism shortcuts the learning process.
Motivating students comes down to making them want to attend your class, and there are a variety of ways to accomplish this, some of which take more planning and effort than others. For example, teachers can (I would say "should") look for ways to connect course content to current events and issues and to individual student's interests. They can also include opening questions or interactive exercises (I like small group discussions and learning "games") that get students thinking about issues raised by the text from different angles. Being flexible enough to adapt your lesson plans and syllabus to address questions that students raise in class goes a long way toward improving motivation, too; for example, I made room last week for us to read an early martyr story because the students were obviously interested in the topic and it related to issues that had been raised in previous classes. The discussion was exceptionally good that day, so the adjustment paid off.
The workshop presenter concluded that high motivation was the most important of the three factors, but I'm not so sure. I kept thinking back to the plagiarism case I had last year and wondering if implementing any of these strategies could have prevented the situation. The student in question was undeniably the most motivated and interested student in the class. He always arrived early, dominated class discussions, and asked questions that showed that he was really thinking about the material and connecting it to what he was learning in his other classes. He was older than my other students, and his education was being funded by an off-campus internship which required him to take a set number of courses per semester and maintain a minimum GPA. His very career was on the line, and he knew how high the cost of failure would be. It was clear from the conversations we had that he understood and feared the consequences. So--high motivation: check. High cost: check. The missing element, if there was one, was high supervision. As I mentioned in my last post in this series, implementing the whole high supervision strategy in a course like mine is impractical. But supervision wasn't entirely absent in this case: I had referred this student to the university writing center after his first paper for me earned him a generous C-. He indicated to me that he appreciated the referral and knew that his writing needed to improve. I also told the class that I would review drafts. In the end, the student chose to plagiarize because he feared that he wouldn't be able to write a paper for me that would earn him the kind of grade he needed to keep his internship. As it turned out, he would have finished the course with a B- had his second paper (which was only 10% of the final grade) earned the same grade as the first. Requiring a rough draft for the paper might have prevented this case, but there's only so much I can do with the time that I have and the course parameters I've been given.
In the final analysis, I conclude that high supervision is the most effective of the three factors. High cost is not enough of a deterrent these days, and even students who are highly motivated may succumb to the temptation to plagiarize if other circumstances are present. As a (protestant) theology teacher, I believe that one of those other circumstances is something called the "sin nature," and it's a powerful force. When combined with other factors like poor time management or fear of failure, some students will choose to plagiarize, no matter what steps we take to make it more difficult for them to do so (in this I differ from the workshop presenter). High supervision is the most effective of the three factors simply because it places the biggest obstacle to plagiarism in the student's path. Unfortunately, it's just not always practical. All I can do is do my best to motivate students, stay vigilant, and enforce the policy when a case arises. Here's hoping the next one is a long way off.
The theory is simple: the more motivated your students are, the more interested they will be in the content of your course, and the more likely they will be to complete the assignments themselves. They will want to learn, and they will realize at some level that plagiarism shortcuts the learning process.
Motivating students comes down to making them want to attend your class, and there are a variety of ways to accomplish this, some of which take more planning and effort than others. For example, teachers can (I would say "should") look for ways to connect course content to current events and issues and to individual student's interests. They can also include opening questions or interactive exercises (I like small group discussions and learning "games") that get students thinking about issues raised by the text from different angles. Being flexible enough to adapt your lesson plans and syllabus to address questions that students raise in class goes a long way toward improving motivation, too; for example, I made room last week for us to read an early martyr story because the students were obviously interested in the topic and it related to issues that had been raised in previous classes. The discussion was exceptionally good that day, so the adjustment paid off.
The workshop presenter concluded that high motivation was the most important of the three factors, but I'm not so sure. I kept thinking back to the plagiarism case I had last year and wondering if implementing any of these strategies could have prevented the situation. The student in question was undeniably the most motivated and interested student in the class. He always arrived early, dominated class discussions, and asked questions that showed that he was really thinking about the material and connecting it to what he was learning in his other classes. He was older than my other students, and his education was being funded by an off-campus internship which required him to take a set number of courses per semester and maintain a minimum GPA. His very career was on the line, and he knew how high the cost of failure would be. It was clear from the conversations we had that he understood and feared the consequences. So--high motivation: check. High cost: check. The missing element, if there was one, was high supervision. As I mentioned in my last post in this series, implementing the whole high supervision strategy in a course like mine is impractical. But supervision wasn't entirely absent in this case: I had referred this student to the university writing center after his first paper for me earned him a generous C-. He indicated to me that he appreciated the referral and knew that his writing needed to improve. I also told the class that I would review drafts. In the end, the student chose to plagiarize because he feared that he wouldn't be able to write a paper for me that would earn him the kind of grade he needed to keep his internship. As it turned out, he would have finished the course with a B- had his second paper (which was only 10% of the final grade) earned the same grade as the first. Requiring a rough draft for the paper might have prevented this case, but there's only so much I can do with the time that I have and the course parameters I've been given.
In the final analysis, I conclude that high supervision is the most effective of the three factors. High cost is not enough of a deterrent these days, and even students who are highly motivated may succumb to the temptation to plagiarize if other circumstances are present. As a (protestant) theology teacher, I believe that one of those other circumstances is something called the "sin nature," and it's a powerful force. When combined with other factors like poor time management or fear of failure, some students will choose to plagiarize, no matter what steps we take to make it more difficult for them to do so (in this I differ from the workshop presenter). High supervision is the most effective of the three factors simply because it places the biggest obstacle to plagiarism in the student's path. Unfortunately, it's just not always practical. All I can do is do my best to motivate students, stay vigilant, and enforce the policy when a case arises. Here's hoping the next one is a long way off.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Don't Drink the Green Beer
Beannachtai na Feile Padraig obhair! [lit. "St. Patrick's Day blessings be upon you]
I'm interrupting my "preventing plagiarism" series to pass along my wishes for a happy St. Patrick's Day, and to offer some advice as to how you can best celebrate the holiday.
First, remember that our modern English word "holiday" is a compound that derives from "holy day," the designation given in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar to days set aside for feasts (commemorations of the lives of saints or of important events in Christian history) or fasts. Celebrating the life of a saint with a feast is a carryover from the early Christian tradition of holding a community meal at the saint's tomb on the anniversary of his/her death, to hold up his/her life as an example and to remind the assembled company that Christians who have departed this world are still a part of the Church. It is, therefore, appropriate to enjoy a special meal on St. Patrick's Day, and to read accounts of his life and work. It is not, however, appropriate to drink to excess and behave in an immoral manner simply because the folks at Hallmark and other retailers are selling St. Patrick's Day merchandise. If you're not Christian, you probably aren't interested in the work that St. Patrick is remembered for, anyway, unless you're a history buff.
Second, although it is appropriate to enjoy a special meal, may I urge you not to choose corned beef and cabbage and (God help us all) green beer? The traditional Irish feast-day meal includes potatoes and cabbage (OK, so most Irish meals contain potatoes and cabbage...) and what I can only describe as a slab of unsliced bacon boiled in water and/or beer. Corned beef came to be associated with Irish cuisine only after Irish immigrants began arriving in this country. The bacon that they were accustomed to eating was nowhere to be found here, and corned beef brisket was the nearest equivalent. I suppose this fact itself makes corned beef and cabbage an acceptable St. Patrick's Day meal in America, but these days you can get almost any comestible anywhere in the world, and I'm a traditionalist. If you wish to add soda bread to your feast, choose a plain white or wheat loaf--NO RAISINS. Soda bread should contain flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk (and possibly baking powder, although this one is debatable) and nothing else. No eggs, butter (except that which the consumer spreads on the slices before eating), or sugar--these ingredients were considered too luxurious in the Old World for daily use and only became common additions when the Irish immigrants found themselves in a better economic position. Adding raisins or currants to breads does have precedent, but the resulting bread is properly styled a scone or tea cake. And, please, don't get me started on the subject of green beer. Just do yourself a favor and stick to the unadulterated kind.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, take some time to remember the life of St. Patrick himself. Scholars these days debate almost every facet of his life--including the question of whether or not he really existed (although it's a minority view)--but the person we think of on this day is remembered for bringing Christianity to the people of Ireland on a wide scale. Although a foreigner, he learned the Irish tongue (no easy task, I assure you) and explained the gospel to the people in terms that resonated with them (the story about the shamrock, is, alas, legend), and by appealing to their leaders to convert. He encouraged those who converted to enter into religious (i.e. monastic, although the early Irish version of this is different from what we think of as monasticism) life, and he went to great lengths to ransom Christians who had been taken captive in the slave trade. He also chastised the slavers themselves and urged them to find other ways of earning a living.
You may not be called to foreign missions, but on this feast day, I'll bet there is some aspect of St. Patrick's life and work that can spur you on to greater things. Is there a cross-cultural bridge that you can begin to build in your workplace, school, or community? Is there a work of social justice (yes, I know that's a loaded term) that you can get involved with? Is there someone who needs to hear the gospel in a way that you can explain? Think about it--and please, don't drink the green beer.
I'm interrupting my "preventing plagiarism" series to pass along my wishes for a happy St. Patrick's Day, and to offer some advice as to how you can best celebrate the holiday.
First, remember that our modern English word "holiday" is a compound that derives from "holy day," the designation given in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar to days set aside for feasts (commemorations of the lives of saints or of important events in Christian history) or fasts. Celebrating the life of a saint with a feast is a carryover from the early Christian tradition of holding a community meal at the saint's tomb on the anniversary of his/her death, to hold up his/her life as an example and to remind the assembled company that Christians who have departed this world are still a part of the Church. It is, therefore, appropriate to enjoy a special meal on St. Patrick's Day, and to read accounts of his life and work. It is not, however, appropriate to drink to excess and behave in an immoral manner simply because the folks at Hallmark and other retailers are selling St. Patrick's Day merchandise. If you're not Christian, you probably aren't interested in the work that St. Patrick is remembered for, anyway, unless you're a history buff.
Second, although it is appropriate to enjoy a special meal, may I urge you not to choose corned beef and cabbage and (God help us all) green beer? The traditional Irish feast-day meal includes potatoes and cabbage (OK, so most Irish meals contain potatoes and cabbage...) and what I can only describe as a slab of unsliced bacon boiled in water and/or beer. Corned beef came to be associated with Irish cuisine only after Irish immigrants began arriving in this country. The bacon that they were accustomed to eating was nowhere to be found here, and corned beef brisket was the nearest equivalent. I suppose this fact itself makes corned beef and cabbage an acceptable St. Patrick's Day meal in America, but these days you can get almost any comestible anywhere in the world, and I'm a traditionalist. If you wish to add soda bread to your feast, choose a plain white or wheat loaf--NO RAISINS. Soda bread should contain flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk (and possibly baking powder, although this one is debatable) and nothing else. No eggs, butter (except that which the consumer spreads on the slices before eating), or sugar--these ingredients were considered too luxurious in the Old World for daily use and only became common additions when the Irish immigrants found themselves in a better economic position. Adding raisins or currants to breads does have precedent, but the resulting bread is properly styled a scone or tea cake. And, please, don't get me started on the subject of green beer. Just do yourself a favor and stick to the unadulterated kind.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, take some time to remember the life of St. Patrick himself. Scholars these days debate almost every facet of his life--including the question of whether or not he really existed (although it's a minority view)--but the person we think of on this day is remembered for bringing Christianity to the people of Ireland on a wide scale. Although a foreigner, he learned the Irish tongue (no easy task, I assure you) and explained the gospel to the people in terms that resonated with them (the story about the shamrock, is, alas, legend), and by appealing to their leaders to convert. He encouraged those who converted to enter into religious (i.e. monastic, although the early Irish version of this is different from what we think of as monasticism) life, and he went to great lengths to ransom Christians who had been taken captive in the slave trade. He also chastised the slavers themselves and urged them to find other ways of earning a living.
You may not be called to foreign missions, but on this feast day, I'll bet there is some aspect of St. Patrick's life and work that can spur you on to greater things. Is there a cross-cultural bridge that you can begin to build in your workplace, school, or community? Is there a work of social justice (yes, I know that's a loaded term) that you can get involved with? Is there someone who needs to hear the gospel in a way that you can explain? Think about it--and please, don't drink the green beer.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Teaching and Learning
Some days my students leave me wondering if they've gotten anything at all out of class. Other days, they take my breath away. Yesterday was one of the latter. It didn't turn out the way I anticipated, but it was easily one of the best classroom days I have ever had.
We've spent the last two weeks discussing some key Old Testament texts, like the creation stories and the Exodus narrative. Yesterday's plan was to wrap up with the book of Job, one of the most challenging books in the Bible. Toward the end of each session, I tried to bring the class around to a couple of big questions (this is, after all, a reading skills class): how does this text portray God, and why is it part of the Bible (i.e., what are we supposed to learn from it?)?
The second of those questions takes on even greater importance when the text that the students have to wrestle with raises difficult issues or questions. Asking students to think about the significance of the text helps them get past the obvious answers to some of the difficulties they find. Last year's classes were really bothered by some of the things that God does in the Exodus story and by the way he is portrayed in the book of Job, so I was expecting that the two sections I am teaching this year would raise similar issues. Accordingly, I reviewed last year's notes and incorporated some comments from outside discussions into my plans to strengthen the emphasis on the dangers of trying to create for ourselves an image of God that we like and can accept on our terms. After all, I planned to point out, doesn't this process invert the Creator/creation relationship and violate the first commandment? And looking back to the creation accounts, if the Scriptures teach that God is simultaneously transcendent and immanent, shouldn't we expect to encounter aspects of the divine nature that are difficult for our finite human minds to understand? Indeed, the Westminster Shorter Catechism (which Catholics don't accept, so using this one in class is a bit sticky) says that God has planned everything for His own glory (see question 7).
This was where I expected the class to go. It's not an answer that satisfies everybody--or even most people--but it's consistent with the rest of divine revelation and maintains the distinction between human beings and God. And I'm wary of providing pat answers--I'd much rather see that my students are wrestling with the difficult questions on their own and making the transition from a "borrowed" faith (from their parents, their previous schooling, or wherever) to an owned faith. If some of them radically alter their beliefs in a way that I don't like, at least they are thinking for themselves. I thought I was as well-prepared as I could possibly be, so I braved the elements (5" of snow and limited bus service) and headed off for campus.
I should have remembered the first rule of teaching young adults: never assume that you know where a class will lead.
My honors section was first. As expected, they pointed out all of the difficulties with the text and we had a good discussion. As the end of our time approached, I asked the First Big Question: "Why do you think the book of Job was included in the Bible?" A few students offered their observations: "the problem of suffering is always relevant," "it gives us a picture of what it means to have faith," etc. Then one of my best thinkers said, "I think it makes us ask ourselves why we worship God, and we need to wrestle with the question to make sure that we don't worship an incorrect mental image of God." "Check," I thought, "and I didn't even have to prompt them to go there. So far, so good." I asked the Second Big Question: "What is the image of God that we get from this text?" I expected things would get sticky at this point, but again, they picked up on the transcendent/immanent point right away without any prompting. "Excellent," I thought, "checkmate. But they don't seem to be all that disturbed by the text. What are they really thinking?" The "purpose of God" angle didn't feel right with this bunch--since they weren't really struggling with that issue--so I passed on it and asked instead, "Where do you see the immanence of God in this text?"
I was expecting an answer along the lines of "God speaks with Job at the end of the book," and I was not disappointed. Then came the breathtaking moment that I had not planned for. "I think we see God's immanence in this text because at the beginning of the story, God already knows that Job will pass the test," said The Thinker. "So in the end, it's not as cruel of God as we think it is, because he knows what Job can handle. He knows Job."
I was absolutely speechless.
And it's not even that profound an answer. It's right there, at the beginning of the book, where it's always been every time I've read it before. So why didn't I see it?
Maybe it's because we spend so much time analyzing the theology of Job and his friends in the bulk of the book, or because we tend to write off the interaction between God and Satan that sets up the story as less real or significant. Maybe it's because we get sidetracked trying to explain why the "blameless servant of God" ends up repenting at the end of the book. Or maybe it's because we tend to feel bludgeoned by all the descriptions of God's omnipotence and transcendence. Whatever the reason, I'd somehow missed this one during all my "preparations" for class.
Now I have another question. I get paid to teach the class. Should I share the proceeds of yesterday's labor with the entire class? Good teaching is as much about learning together as it is about preparing (or attempting to prepare) lesson plans, grading assignments, and taking attendance.
It's going to be a good semester. I can't wait to see what my students do with some of our other texts.
We've spent the last two weeks discussing some key Old Testament texts, like the creation stories and the Exodus narrative. Yesterday's plan was to wrap up with the book of Job, one of the most challenging books in the Bible. Toward the end of each session, I tried to bring the class around to a couple of big questions (this is, after all, a reading skills class): how does this text portray God, and why is it part of the Bible (i.e., what are we supposed to learn from it?)?
The second of those questions takes on even greater importance when the text that the students have to wrestle with raises difficult issues or questions. Asking students to think about the significance of the text helps them get past the obvious answers to some of the difficulties they find. Last year's classes were really bothered by some of the things that God does in the Exodus story and by the way he is portrayed in the book of Job, so I was expecting that the two sections I am teaching this year would raise similar issues. Accordingly, I reviewed last year's notes and incorporated some comments from outside discussions into my plans to strengthen the emphasis on the dangers of trying to create for ourselves an image of God that we like and can accept on our terms. After all, I planned to point out, doesn't this process invert the Creator/creation relationship and violate the first commandment? And looking back to the creation accounts, if the Scriptures teach that God is simultaneously transcendent and immanent, shouldn't we expect to encounter aspects of the divine nature that are difficult for our finite human minds to understand? Indeed, the Westminster Shorter Catechism (which Catholics don't accept, so using this one in class is a bit sticky) says that God has planned everything for His own glory (see question 7).
This was where I expected the class to go. It's not an answer that satisfies everybody--or even most people--but it's consistent with the rest of divine revelation and maintains the distinction between human beings and God. And I'm wary of providing pat answers--I'd much rather see that my students are wrestling with the difficult questions on their own and making the transition from a "borrowed" faith (from their parents, their previous schooling, or wherever) to an owned faith. If some of them radically alter their beliefs in a way that I don't like, at least they are thinking for themselves. I thought I was as well-prepared as I could possibly be, so I braved the elements (5" of snow and limited bus service) and headed off for campus.
I should have remembered the first rule of teaching young adults: never assume that you know where a class will lead.
My honors section was first. As expected, they pointed out all of the difficulties with the text and we had a good discussion. As the end of our time approached, I asked the First Big Question: "Why do you think the book of Job was included in the Bible?" A few students offered their observations: "the problem of suffering is always relevant," "it gives us a picture of what it means to have faith," etc. Then one of my best thinkers said, "I think it makes us ask ourselves why we worship God, and we need to wrestle with the question to make sure that we don't worship an incorrect mental image of God." "Check," I thought, "and I didn't even have to prompt them to go there. So far, so good." I asked the Second Big Question: "What is the image of God that we get from this text?" I expected things would get sticky at this point, but again, they picked up on the transcendent/immanent point right away without any prompting. "Excellent," I thought, "checkmate. But they don't seem to be all that disturbed by the text. What are they really thinking?" The "purpose of God" angle didn't feel right with this bunch--since they weren't really struggling with that issue--so I passed on it and asked instead, "Where do you see the immanence of God in this text?"
I was expecting an answer along the lines of "God speaks with Job at the end of the book," and I was not disappointed. Then came the breathtaking moment that I had not planned for. "I think we see God's immanence in this text because at the beginning of the story, God already knows that Job will pass the test," said The Thinker. "So in the end, it's not as cruel of God as we think it is, because he knows what Job can handle. He knows Job."
I was absolutely speechless.
And it's not even that profound an answer. It's right there, at the beginning of the book, where it's always been every time I've read it before. So why didn't I see it?
Maybe it's because we spend so much time analyzing the theology of Job and his friends in the bulk of the book, or because we tend to write off the interaction between God and Satan that sets up the story as less real or significant. Maybe it's because we get sidetracked trying to explain why the "blameless servant of God" ends up repenting at the end of the book. Or maybe it's because we tend to feel bludgeoned by all the descriptions of God's omnipotence and transcendence. Whatever the reason, I'd somehow missed this one during all my "preparations" for class.
Now I have another question. I get paid to teach the class. Should I share the proceeds of yesterday's labor with the entire class? Good teaching is as much about learning together as it is about preparing (or attempting to prepare) lesson plans, grading assignments, and taking attendance.
It's going to be a good semester. I can't wait to see what my students do with some of our other texts.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Three Main Christian Traditions Simplified
I've billed this blog as "random thoughts on theology, etc." but haven't really written any theology reflections until now. Last night, however, I was reading about the sacrament of baptism in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and I had a brainstorm. So, without further ado, I offer my first theology post.
I used to describe the differences between the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches in terms of number of sacraments observed, the role of tradition, whether or not clergy can marry, and so on. I now think the differences can be summarized far more simply. I now suspect that most of the specific differences between the churches stem from the fact that each tradition emphasizes a different part of the salvation process.
The doctrine of salvation, at least according to the (Protestant) theology textbooks I've read, may be subdivided into three distinct but overlapping processes: justification, sanctification and glorification. Justification is the act of being made (or being declared, according to some denominations) righteous before God. It means that God considers our sins removed or covered with the blood of Jesus' sacrifice. The price has been paid. Sanctification is the process of being made holy (some denominations believe that sanctification is more of a one-time act that happens at a definite moment in time after justification). We learn to be more and more like Christ, and we put sinful ways behind us. Glorification is the consummation of salvation, when all traces of our old self are finally stripped away, and we are perfected in body and spirit, able at last to enter into God's presence.
Since I've been at CUA, I've noticed that when Catholics and Protestants use words like "salvation" or "saved," they have different processes in mind. Protestants almost always are referring exclusively to justification. Forgiveness of sins, for Protestants, at least, is a once-for-all-time deal. When you become a Christian, all the sins you've ever committed or ever will commit are forgiven. So the Protestant can speak of having been "saved" and no longer subject to God's wrath. That's what salvation is, after all: salvation from God's punishment of sin, which is death. Catholics, however, are almost always referring to sanctification. The baptism that initiates one into the Catholic Church removes the original sin that one was born with, but sins committed after baptism also need to be forgiven, and that requires one to "cooperate" with God's grace by showing earnest repentance. This is why the Catholic Church recognizes penance (confession of sin followed by acts of contrition and satisfaction such as prayer or works of charity) as a sacrament and holds to the existence of purgatory. Only after all of one's sins have been atoned for may one enter the presence of the holy God in heaven, and baptism doesn't cover sins committed afterward. This is why Catholics speak of being saved, and it's also why the Catholic Church seems, to most Protestants, to preach a works-based salvation. The focus is on the process rather than on a single moment in time.
What I didn't realize until last night is that Eastern Orthodox Christians focus on the third part of salvation, glorification. Eastern Christians have historically spoken about "divinization," which sounds heretical to Western ears but really means being made more and more like God. Divinization begins with justification and sanctification, but also includes the idea that two of God's fundamental attributes are incorruptibility and immortality. Man was created in God's image and likeness, but these have been tarnished or twisted by sin. Hence he can no longer dwell in God's presence and receive from God the gift of immortality (Eastern theology states the human beings were not created immortal but would have enjoyed eternal life as long as they remained in God's presence). The sacramental life, which begins with baptism and includes reception of the Eucharist (infants in the Eastern Orthodox church receive communion from the day of their baptism on) and frequent confession and penance, is more than the Western "account keeping" model (Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes in penance for post-baptismal sins, but does not believe in purgatory) and consumption of the body and blood of Christ, the sacrificial victim (or hostia, from which we get the word "host" to refer to the blessed communion bread). Participation in the sacraments is participation in the divine life itself, as the sacraments reflect and create heavenly realities in the lives of believers on earth. Perhaps the best example is the Eastern Orthodox marriage ceremony, which includes rituals that recreate the crowning of Adam and Eve as king and queen of their household. As one travels through life and participates in the liturgies, one becomes closer and closer to God and can once dwell in His presence and enjoy His incorruptibility and immortality. Roman Catholicism has these ideas too--and speaking of sanctification as "account keeping" is an oversimplification, to be sure--but in much more of a supporting role.
Now don't get me wrong: the three traditions do have real differences, and different views of where the emphasis is placed in the salvation act or process have led to highly divergent worldviews and practices which may be ultimately insurmountable. But we can't have an informed discussion if we misunderstand the ways we use basic terms like "salvation." So the next time you find yourself having a theological discussion with a Christian from another tradition, don't assume that he or she means the same thing you do by using certain words. We've looked at the key term "salvation" in this post. To summarize: Protestants, even though they don't deny the importance of obedience to God and living an upright life, emphasize God's absolute grace and focus on the doctrine of justification. Roman Catholics believe in grace, too, but believe that Christians must "show willing" in order to be saved. They must cooperate with God's grace by continually repenting of their sins and by actively participating in the sanctification process. Eastern Orthodox Christians, too, speak of grace and acts of repentance, but tend to take a panoramic view of salvation and stress the end goal of participating in the divine life in the presence of God.
I used to describe the differences between the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches in terms of number of sacraments observed, the role of tradition, whether or not clergy can marry, and so on. I now think the differences can be summarized far more simply. I now suspect that most of the specific differences between the churches stem from the fact that each tradition emphasizes a different part of the salvation process.
The doctrine of salvation, at least according to the (Protestant) theology textbooks I've read, may be subdivided into three distinct but overlapping processes: justification, sanctification and glorification. Justification is the act of being made (or being declared, according to some denominations) righteous before God. It means that God considers our sins removed or covered with the blood of Jesus' sacrifice. The price has been paid. Sanctification is the process of being made holy (some denominations believe that sanctification is more of a one-time act that happens at a definite moment in time after justification). We learn to be more and more like Christ, and we put sinful ways behind us. Glorification is the consummation of salvation, when all traces of our old self are finally stripped away, and we are perfected in body and spirit, able at last to enter into God's presence.
Since I've been at CUA, I've noticed that when Catholics and Protestants use words like "salvation" or "saved," they have different processes in mind. Protestants almost always are referring exclusively to justification. Forgiveness of sins, for Protestants, at least, is a once-for-all-time deal. When you become a Christian, all the sins you've ever committed or ever will commit are forgiven. So the Protestant can speak of having been "saved" and no longer subject to God's wrath. That's what salvation is, after all: salvation from God's punishment of sin, which is death. Catholics, however, are almost always referring to sanctification. The baptism that initiates one into the Catholic Church removes the original sin that one was born with, but sins committed after baptism also need to be forgiven, and that requires one to "cooperate" with God's grace by showing earnest repentance. This is why the Catholic Church recognizes penance (confession of sin followed by acts of contrition and satisfaction such as prayer or works of charity) as a sacrament and holds to the existence of purgatory. Only after all of one's sins have been atoned for may one enter the presence of the holy God in heaven, and baptism doesn't cover sins committed afterward. This is why Catholics speak of being saved, and it's also why the Catholic Church seems, to most Protestants, to preach a works-based salvation. The focus is on the process rather than on a single moment in time.
What I didn't realize until last night is that Eastern Orthodox Christians focus on the third part of salvation, glorification. Eastern Christians have historically spoken about "divinization," which sounds heretical to Western ears but really means being made more and more like God. Divinization begins with justification and sanctification, but also includes the idea that two of God's fundamental attributes are incorruptibility and immortality. Man was created in God's image and likeness, but these have been tarnished or twisted by sin. Hence he can no longer dwell in God's presence and receive from God the gift of immortality (Eastern theology states the human beings were not created immortal but would have enjoyed eternal life as long as they remained in God's presence). The sacramental life, which begins with baptism and includes reception of the Eucharist (infants in the Eastern Orthodox church receive communion from the day of their baptism on) and frequent confession and penance, is more than the Western "account keeping" model (Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes in penance for post-baptismal sins, but does not believe in purgatory) and consumption of the body and blood of Christ, the sacrificial victim (or hostia, from which we get the word "host" to refer to the blessed communion bread). Participation in the sacraments is participation in the divine life itself, as the sacraments reflect and create heavenly realities in the lives of believers on earth. Perhaps the best example is the Eastern Orthodox marriage ceremony, which includes rituals that recreate the crowning of Adam and Eve as king and queen of their household. As one travels through life and participates in the liturgies, one becomes closer and closer to God and can once dwell in His presence and enjoy His incorruptibility and immortality. Roman Catholicism has these ideas too--and speaking of sanctification as "account keeping" is an oversimplification, to be sure--but in much more of a supporting role.
Now don't get me wrong: the three traditions do have real differences, and different views of where the emphasis is placed in the salvation act or process have led to highly divergent worldviews and practices which may be ultimately insurmountable. But we can't have an informed discussion if we misunderstand the ways we use basic terms like "salvation." So the next time you find yourself having a theological discussion with a Christian from another tradition, don't assume that he or she means the same thing you do by using certain words. We've looked at the key term "salvation" in this post. To summarize: Protestants, even though they don't deny the importance of obedience to God and living an upright life, emphasize God's absolute grace and focus on the doctrine of justification. Roman Catholics believe in grace, too, but believe that Christians must "show willing" in order to be saved. They must cooperate with God's grace by continually repenting of their sins and by actively participating in the sanctification process. Eastern Orthodox Christians, too, speak of grace and acts of repentance, but tend to take a panoramic view of salvation and stress the end goal of participating in the divine life in the presence of God.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Philosophy of (No) Religion
I had the opportunity this afternoon to meet the students that I will be teaching in the spring. It was an awkward meeting; I, along with a grad student in English, will be team-teaching two separate sections of students this year. One section has been set aside for students in the University Honors Program, and the other section is just "regular", although I always have one or two students in the "regular" classes who could easily do honors-level work.
The third member of the teaching team comes from the School of Philosophy, and since the Honors Program philosophy track follows a different sequence, I'll be working with two different philosophy instructors. The "regular" section will be taught by a grad student in philosophy, but the honors section will be taught by a member of the philosophy faculty, Fr. James Brent.
Fr. Brent had the students fill out information cards, and one of the bits of information he requested was "religious affiliation." This datum, he said, was optional; students could leave it blank if they so chose. Then he made an interesting statement: the belief that religious affiliation is optional is itself a philosophical position that demands examination and proof.
I don't know why I'd never thought of this before. I've had courses in Philosophy of Religion, and I've always regarded atheism as a religion in its own right, or at least as a philosophical commitment to a denial of the existence of God. But Fr. Brent is correct: to regard religious affiliation as "optional" says a lot about the value (or lack thereof) and significance of religion in the first place.
To give credit where credit is due, Fr. Brent cited "A Secular Age" by the modern philosopher Charles Taylor as the source of his statement. It's been a long time since I read a philosophy book, but this one looks good, so I'll be adding it to my reading list. I'm just not sure when I'll get to it...
The third member of the teaching team comes from the School of Philosophy, and since the Honors Program philosophy track follows a different sequence, I'll be working with two different philosophy instructors. The "regular" section will be taught by a grad student in philosophy, but the honors section will be taught by a member of the philosophy faculty, Fr. James Brent.
Fr. Brent had the students fill out information cards, and one of the bits of information he requested was "religious affiliation." This datum, he said, was optional; students could leave it blank if they so chose. Then he made an interesting statement: the belief that religious affiliation is optional is itself a philosophical position that demands examination and proof.
I don't know why I'd never thought of this before. I've had courses in Philosophy of Religion, and I've always regarded atheism as a religion in its own right, or at least as a philosophical commitment to a denial of the existence of God. But Fr. Brent is correct: to regard religious affiliation as "optional" says a lot about the value (or lack thereof) and significance of religion in the first place.
To give credit where credit is due, Fr. Brent cited "A Secular Age" by the modern philosopher Charles Taylor as the source of his statement. It's been a long time since I read a philosophy book, but this one looks good, so I'll be adding it to my reading list. I'm just not sure when I'll get to it...
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