God Our Teacher

Theological Basics in Christian Education

Robert W. Pazmiño

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN: 9780801022845
• eBook ISBN: 9781441206411
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

A topic of frequent discussion in religious education circles is the relationship between theology and practice. How does Christian theology work itself out in the teaching ministries of the church? Noted Christian education thinker Robert Pazmiño contemplates this debate and offers a contemporary overview of the messages theology brings to Christian education.
Sensitive to today's expanding global culture, God Our Teacher reaffirms the essential role theology plays in developing educational practices and conventions, and carefully fleshes out what it means to use the Trinity as a model for ordering educational thought and practice. This book will be welcomed by all those involved in fostering the growth and development of Christian education.

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GOD FOR US:
THE TRINITY AND TEACHING

The Trinity is the great mystery of the Christian faith that believers over the centuries have sought to understand and share with others through their teaching. The idea of one God revealed in three persons has stretched the human imagination and has been a source of strength and wonder. Teaching this core doctrine of the faith has been a challenge in each age as Christians seek to proclaim the truth in ways that affect everyday life. The purpose of this first chapter is to revisit this precious Christian truth with a particular interest in making connections to the ministries of teaching. James Smart, in his now classic work The Teaching Ministry of the Church, suggested that the doctrine of the Trinity is the essential starting point for understanding the theological bases of Christian education.[1] The Trinity is the place to start in understanding how God is for us as well as despite, with, in, through, and beyond us.

In recent years theologians have reconsidered the doctrine or teaching of the Trinity. This is appropriate since each generation of Christians has the responsibility, indeed the divine calling, to express its understanding of God in ways that address its distinctive setting and audience. In this effort, Christians cannot ignore the thoughts of those who came before them in the advance of the church. Christians have the obligation of discerning points of continuity with historical formulations of the faith and of struggling with new light and truth as it breaks forth from various sources. While this is a precarious task, refusing to engage it relegates the Christian gospel to a secondary place in the affairs of human life. The Christian faith claims God’s revelation discloses reality that humanity ignores at the expense of experiencing life at its fullest.

To engage the theological task of understanding and teaching about the Trinity requires openness to the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the promised tutor who assists Christians in wrestling with God’s truths and sharing their discoveries with others. Jesus promised to send the Spirit of truth to his followers in their ongoing ministry of making disciples and teaching them all that Jesus himself taught (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7; Matt. 28:18–20). The Spirit of Christ discloses to Jesus’ followers those truths they need to live and to nurture the faith of rising generations.

I approach this work of recovering an understanding of the Trinity from the perspective of a practical theologian with a particular commitment to Christian education. I draw upon the research and writings of other theologians who have an interest in classical, systematic, and biblical theology with the hope of gaining new insight and wisdom for the task of teaching the Christian faith in a postmodern world.[2] This inquiry presumes an understanding of the Trinity from a faith perspective that affirms this core Christian belief as essential. In fact, the Trinity serves as an organizing grammar and theme for Christian education in all of its dimensions. While this thought is not new in the history of the Christian church, the application to current educational thought and practice may provide some additional insights for those engaged in and concerned for effective Christian education in the third millennium.[3]

My interest in the implications of our understanding of and experience with the blessed Trinity for teaching derives from the work of Nels Ferré, a systematic theologian who worked with D. Campbell Wyckoff, a renowned Christian educator. In his work A Theology for Christian Education, Ferré proposed a trinitarian model with God the Father as the educator, Jesus Christ the Son as the exemplar, and the Holy Spirit as the tutor.[4] My fascination with how the life and activity of the Trinity impacts all areas of human and created life naturally leads me to consider the areas of practical theology and Christian ministry. Practical theology, according to Karl Barth, deals with the question of “how the Word of God may be served by human words” and actions, including the words and actions of teachers.[5] Christian ministry, specifically Christian education and teaching, occupies my professional life. In addition, my reading of two recent works from quite different authors convinced me of the importance of making the explicit connection between the Trinity and teaching in a work that explores theological basics for Christian education.

Two Recent Works

The first work was that of Peter Toon, an Anglican theologian who has taught theology in England, the United States, and abroad for about thirty years. Toon is the president of the Prayer Book Society of the Episcopal Church. Being baptized at birth in an Episcopal church, but later raised as a Baptist and again baptized as an adult, I was delighted to return to my ecclesiastical roots through Toon’s writing. His work Our Triune God: A Biblical Portrayal of the Trinity skillfully explores the depths of the biblical record for the existence and priority of a trinitarian pattern. He effectively defends the essential role of the Trinity in Christian belief, faith, and practice.[6] Toon’s work affirmed the continuing importance of returning to our Christian roots to gain perspective and remain faithful to the gospel delivered to us. I am reminded of a proverb from Jewish spiritual educator Abraham Heschel. Heschel noted that “thinking without roots will bear flowers but no fruit.”[7] Being raised in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, I found Heschel’s insights to ring true. Returning to the roots of the Christian faith as discovered in the Scriptures is essential for any Christian who desires to teach the faith. The scriptural roots affirm the Trinity as a core Christian belief that is essential and nonnegotiable.

The second work that I encountered was Renewing America’s Soul: A Spiritual Psychology for Home, Work, and Nation by Howard E. Butt, Jr.[8] Butt is the president of the H. E. Butt Foundation and the Laity Lodge Retreat Center in Kerrville, Texas. A businessman for fifty years, he has been active as a lay leader seeking to bridge the secular and religious worlds. In his book, Butt sees the Triune God as the organizing theme underlying all of life, including the “common fabric of daily life.”[9] Just as Toon argues for the importance of the Trinity for Christian faith, Butt argues for the importance of the Trinity for life in a variety of spheres including the home, work, and nation. Drawing upon his understanding of psychology and the Scriptures, he presents a convincing example of how trinitarian thinking can be generative for creative ministry and life faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

After reading these two works, the challenge posed for me as a Christian educator was to consider teaching in relation to the Trinity. This chapter will first survey recent scholarship that addresses the Trinity, going beyond the works of Toon and Butt to consider others like Catherine LaCugna and Leonardo Boff. Recent scholarship affirms the historic orthodox belief in the Triune God that has served to distinguish the Christian faith from other faiths. In light of this affirmation, I suggest that the Trinity serves as an organizing theme for the thought and practice of Christian education.

The last section of the chapter considers how trinitarian thinking influences educational questions. My hope is that this practical theological exploration will serve to foster the connection of faith to life. In a time of societal fragmentation, a search for meaning in all areas of life calls for a grounding that can sustain us. I believe that this grounding can be found in God revealed in three persons—the Triune God in whom we live, move, and have our being (Acts 17:28).

The Trinity in Recent Scholarship

The title for this chapter was suggested to me by the provocative work of Catherine LaCugna entitled God for Us.[10] In this work, LaCugna revisits the doctrine of the Trinity with a focus upon the relationships that exist among the persons of the Trinity and between divinity and humanity. Her thesis is, “The doctrine of the Trinity is ultimately a practical doctrine with radical consequences for the Christian life.”[11] LaCugna addresses the separation between trinitarian doctrine and Christian life by exploring soteriology, the understanding of salvation.[12] She insightfully relates our understanding of the Trinity to God’s works of salvation that demonstrate God’s care and love. God’s care and love provide the foundation for human caring expressed through teaching ministries. However, it is important to note that the focus needs to be upon salvation for more than salvation from. Salvation from sin and various forms of oppression is not to be devalued in any way. Rather, a focus upon salvation for implies the need for clarity regarding the purposes of education. My five-task model of proclamation, community formation, service, advocacy, and worship is just one attempt to identify these perennial purposes. How do these purposes connect to Christian education?[13] We must ask ourselves, what do we educate for? In other words, why should we educate? To what ends do we teach? We educate for God, for others, for ourselves. We also educate for certain outcomes and competencies. But we can lose perspective if these measures are not related to the wider purposes of God and of all humanity. For example, in the press for unity in education, we may not honor the diversity that exists. However, we must also recognize the dangers of unending plurality that fails to affirm an essential unity. In this, the Trinity provides a model for us. Diversity exists in the Trinity, but it is a diversity of three. This is not an unending plurality. In addition, with the three also exists the one God in a unity of purpose and life that models the possibility of partnership, relationship, and mutuality that humanity desires.

The relationships revealed to humanity in the Trinity provide the model for the relationships that can be nurtured through Christian education. Education is clearly not equated with the salvation offered to humanity in the person and work of Jesus Christ. However, Christian education can be a vehicle in the process of salvation that God elects to use to increase the faith, hope, and love of persons. Richard Osmer makes this connection in his recent proposal that Christian education must focus on education for faith, hope, and love related respectively to the perennial teaching tasks of catechesis, discernment, and edification.[14] Historically, Richard Baxter (1615–91), a seventeenth-century Puritan pastor, affirmed this insight in his autobiography when he observed, “I afterward perceived that education is God’s ordinary way for the conveyance of his grace, and ought no more to be set in opposition to the Spirit than the preaching of the Word.”[15]

The Christian teaching that God is for humanity, that God is for us and all of creation, provides the foundation and context for teaching the Christian faith. Because God is for us, we risk being for others in our teaching, supporting them with truth that is shared and explored together. Because God is for us, we dare to speak the truth in love and confront the patterns of death and destruction that result from sin. Because God is for us, we provide the time and space where persons can be receptive to God’s demands and callings. Because God is for us, we share the sources for healing the human mind, body, and spirit and for ministries of reconciliation. Because God is for us, we imagine with hope a new day that embraces the shalom God intends for all believers and all of creation. Because God is for us, we risk the foolishness of teaching, expecting God’s Spirit to work in human hearts and minds. Because God is for us, we celebrate the beauty that God has blessed upon persons, and we lament the daily suffering that visits many lives. Because God is for us, we pray for students, teachers, and all those related to teaching ministries with the expectation that God can teach us all if we have ears to hear and hearts and minds that are receptive. Karl Barth captured the significance of the God of the gospel being for us in the following words:

By definition, the God of Schleiermacher cannot show mercy. The God of the Gospel can and does. Just as his oneness consists in the unity of his life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so in relation to the reality distinct from him he is free de jure and de facto to be the God of man. He exists neither next to man nor merely above him, but rather with him, by him and most important of all, for him. He is man’s God not only as Lord but also as father, brother, friend; and this relationship implies neither a diminution nor in any way a denial, but, instead a confirmation and display of his divine essence itself.[16]

Barth’s words provide grounding for what LaCugna later emphasizes in God being for us.

In addition to LaCugna’s work, Leonardo Boff, in his work titled Trinity and Society, contributes to an understanding of the persons of the Trinity. He proposes that a person be defined as “a being-for . . . an identity formed and completed on the basis of relationships with others.”[17] Teaching requires an understanding of persons who are present and participating. Christian teaching requires a theological anthropology in terms of relationships. Persons as beings-for suggest the need to consider the purposes, directions, commitments, and ministries of participants. The concern for human freedom in education includes a consideration of a freedom for beyond the freedom from any sources of oppression. Freedom for requires consideration of God’s purposes and God’s demands in relation to human callings and vocations. God’s purposes are essential to human fulfillment, and God’s demands often stand in contrast to human needs as defined autonomously by persons. Relationships with others and particularly with God are constitutive of the human community as it seeks to reflect the divine community of the Trinity. Persons created in God’s image find their highest fulfillment in reflecting this reality. Boff’s work has been helpful in reappropriating an understanding of perichoresis or the mutual communion of the Trinity. Each person of the Trinity is a being for others. Therefore, the tasks of Christian education include the formation and transformation of persons as beings for others. This being for others does not discount the care of self that is a particular challenge for females in some cultures, but affirms the care of self as the complement to the care of others.[18] A Christian community is called to foster relationships of mutual care and nurture. Recognition of being created in God’s image implies a sense of mystery in life and an openness to life-in-community. True freedom is found in fulfilling God’s purposes for life that is shared in community with God and others. It is not good that persons be alone (Gen. 1:27; 2:18).

Beyond LaCugna and Boff’s works, a number of theologians have revisited the Trinity in recent scholarship. This effort reflects the current need to identify Christian distinctives in an age of religious pluralism. What distinguishes Christian fait...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. God For Us: The Trinity and Teaching
• 2. God Despite Us: Sin and Salvation
• 3. God With Us: Jesus, the Master Teacher
• 4. God In Us: The Holy Spirit and Teaching
• 5. God Through Us: The Church and Teaching
• 6. God Beyond Us: Our Future in Christian Education
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Crossing Over to Postmodernity: Educational Invitations
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index
• Other Books by Author