From the Pastor

June 2009

The “West Wing” was a television series that ran a few years ago depicting life in the White House and the relationships between the President of the United States and his appointed staff. One episode, featuring the issue of public education in America and how schools should be funded, contained the following quote from the character named Sam: 

Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be in-credibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like na-tional defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet. 

I am equally idealistic and enthusiastic about the religious Christian education of our children, youth and adults, but like Sam, I haven’t figured it out either. 

Christian education is the key to a mature faith – a faith that nurtures our daily lives; a faith that supports us in our striving for peace and justice; a faith that helps us to be in respectful dialogue with those who live and work beside us, but who believe differently than us; a faith that proclaims real, not illusory hope. Such a faith is built on the foundation of a solid understanding of our scriptures, our theology, our rites, our heritage and our traditions. This is not to form cookie-cutter Lutheran Christians, but to equip us to ask good, challenging questions about our faith and our society, and to help us live as faithful people in an ever-changing and imposing world. 

One time I asked a Confirmation Class to tell me what they knew about such general religious things as God, angels, heaven and hell, and the Bible. Then I asked them to tell me where they learned what they knew about these things. After some prodding, it turned out that most of what they knew about these things they learned, not from church, but from television and movies. Think about that for a moment. Most of our religious impressions are formed, not in church, but in popular culture. And it’s my experience that when popular culture deems religion worthy of any attention at all, it is usually depicted simplistically and one dimensionally. 

Consider the recent movie, “Doubt.” This is a beautifully shot and amazingly well acted movie. However, it portrays the typical superficialities I’m talking about. Nuns are either mean tyrants or compassionately naïve, priests are all potential child abusers, and the church is structured merely for self-preservation. Is there some truth in these stereotypes? Yes. Is it the whole story? Not even close. And yet I have sympathy for the producers of this movie. They wanted to make a movie that dealt with the very real and existential issue of religious doubt. But, they also knew that their general audience had never been given the tools to struggle with this question in a meaningful way, so they had to create a simplistic religious environment that would be accessible to the audience. In doing so, the movie served more to confirm pre-conceived notions of Catholicism/Christianity/religion than it did to delve into people’s questioning of their own deeply held religious convic-tions. 

More disconcertingly, when our understanding of our faith is “a mile-wide, but only an inch deep,” it leaves our faith vulnerable to misuse and abuse. Faith is a powerful motivator. The commendable impulse to please God, to be obedient to God’s will, can be easily taken advantage of by a whole host of individuals and groups with various agenda. Do you have the tools to discern “every wind of doctrine?” Do your children? Is faith too simplistic to deal with the complex issues and burning questions of the world? Is it, as many suggest, even the cause of the world’s woes? 

Jesus’ teachings are not simplistic. They challenge authority. They transform lives. His death and resurrection drives us to question all our assumptions. This is wonderfully good news for us and for the world. And yet history shows us that, when understood simplistically, these very foundations of our faith lead to division, pain, and even war. 

Never has Christian education been more relevant or necessary. Our Sunday School rooms should be palaces. They should be jam packed with the resources to help all of us, child and adult alike, to understand the roots of our faith and to use the tools of our faith to be the body of Christ in the world, and they should be led by passionate people skilled in teaching and communicating… “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Ephesians 5:12-13) 

That’s my position. I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet. 

Peace, Pastor Brian