I have tried hard to keep this blog as positive as possible, since I tend to be cynical enough in person. There is far too much complaining on the internet for me, I for one get tired of everyone voicing their complaint, in an attempt to legitimize it, I suppose. With that being said, here comes my rant. It's going to be long, but you'll have to learn to deal. [After finishing: it's only 3 pages, you'll spend longer on Facebook today than it will take to read this]
Christians have failed, and we have failed most spectacularly. I cannot possibly imagine how we could have gone more wrong. I'm not talking about our theology, our devotion, our passion, our zeal, our evangelism, our eschatology, our ecumenism, our philosophy, our Christology, or our hairstyles. I'm talking about our education. We have simply, (and horrifically) failed at educating a generation (actually at least 3, but I'll get there) of believers. Not sort of, not kind of, not mostly. Completely.
But, we have Sunday schools for our children, right? They learn all about Noah and the flood. They make cute "Empty Tomb" cookies at Easter, and they even put on a very nice Christmas program. That's education, right? I mean, it's not that complex, the Bible even says it's not difficult to understand; even the youngest children get it. You send your kiddos to Sunday School, and by the time they're 12 or so, you bring them into worship with you, and that it. They are educated. What more do they need to know?
How have we failed?
I find modern internet culture hilarious, not in the sense that the culture is amusing to me, I mean that the humor resonates with me. I am part of that culture, I understand it. I get the jokes, I know the culture references. One site I visit frequently is reddit.com. It's basically a social site, with about 10 billion subsections. I stick to the news, gaming, and humor sections. There are other sections that are not so innocent (what a surprise, it’s the internet), but they are easy to avoid. They even have a Christianity group. They also have a very active atheism group, one of the largest groups on the site (and the site is one of the largest on the internet). As I type this, the group has 428,439 members. I visit it fairly often, and every time I do, I'm left with an overwhelming sadness. Partially for those half a million people who don’t know a loving God, but mostly for Christians today. Most of the atheists there are college educated; many with graduate degrees. They have had decades of training in philosophy and humanism. They continually mock Christians, who are perceived as ignorant, and sometimes stupid. This is to be somewhat expected, we do not share the same worldview. But many times, what I witness is Christians being unable to defend even simple questions about their faith. The one I see most often is "If God loves everyone, why would he send anyone to hell?". I've seen it dozens of times, these atheists relate their stories about the dumb Christians they meet. They ask these questions because they know the Christian won't know how to answer, and they hope that they will be left questioning their faith. There are thousands more examples.
We have not prepared ourselves to defend our own beliefs. We are unable to answer the simplest of questions. Why? Because we thought singing "I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N" and putting on a Nativity was education enough. We failed ourselves.
Why have we failed?
To put it simply, we got comfortable. We got used to having a basic, rudimentary knowledge of Christianity, and the culture around us holding to the modern 'Christian morality'. Life was easy. We left the defense of the faith to those in far off places, and to those who devoted their lives to theology. We invented the word 'Theologian', so we could claim understanding Scripture was only for the academic elite.
Modern Sunday school was never intended to teach Scripture in the first place. It was a lay-movement in the 18th century, an attempt to educate the poor children in England who, instead of going to school, worked 6 days a week from a very early age. Sunday schools began to develop to use the resources of the church, and the laymen of the church, to give these poor children a basic education. Not a basic Christian education. I'm talking about reading, writing, history, math, etc. It was never intended to bring up strong Christians.
What's the solution?
There is a movement in the modern church (and I think its great), to try and be as much like the 1st century church as possible. The church of the apostles. I would argue that's not really possible. We don’t have any of the 12 (11, really) apostles left, so we cannot replicate the church that they were a part of. What we can replicate is the 2nd century church. That is the church that the apostles left behind, after they had given all the teaching that they were able. We have that teaching, so we can be that church. So, the question is, how did they see education?
I'll just tell you (quickly) how their church operated. Every member was an evangelist. They all proclaimed God's Word to those around them. They met on the first day of the week to worship the Lord. It went like this:
There would be an evangelistic message (sermon), where everyone (Believers, non-believers, etc) was invited to listen. After that, the non-believers exited, and the believers had a worship service. They would sing hymns of praise and have prayer. After the worship, those baptized believers who had not completed their education would be asked to leave, and the Catechized (formally educated) believers would partake in the Lords supper. [Catechesis was a formal education program in the church, lasting several years, where the baptized (adult) believers would be taught the essentials of the faith].
Why do we think this is such a bad idea? Why are we so averse to educating believers? The education believers received during their Catechesis would be equivalent to an undergraduate degree in theology/Bible studies. And now that’s to be regarded as 'above and beyond'? Rubbish.
The United States Marine Corps holds to a standard. That standard is "Every Marine a Rifleman". Other branches of service do not require every member to be proficient in the use of a firearm. The Marine Corps does. Why? Because it is the most basic skill that is required to defend the country in warfare. Therefore; I propose the following: "Every Christian a Theologian" How are we to defend our faith without it, how can we evangelize with a grade-school understanding? We can't.
Addendum:
This is not to say that education is the only thing we should focus ourselves on. There are may wonderful things the church has done, both inside and outside its walls. I only stand in opposition to the notion that formal Christian education is somehow an antiquated, useless thing and our time would be better spent in social gatherings and chats about our feelings. While I don’t reject the merit of such things, they are in fact very beneficial, they DO NOT serve as replacement for the education of the church as a whole.
