I'm Not in High School Anymore

I have some friends from high school who are precious and dear to me, and we speak often. One is a lawyer in Louisiana, one a nuclear engineer, one a manufacturing manager, and another a minister in Driscoll’s Mars Hill network. Three of these four also served in the U.S. Navy. I could not be more proud of these men and who they have become.

When we were in high school we didn’t fit in. I’m not saying that we were members of a group that could have been labeled “the outcasts;” I’m saying that we crossed so many social categories and boundaries that we were un-categorize-able. We were all strong academic performers, but we also played on many of the school’s athletic teams. We were deeply involved in the NJROTC program, but we made time for other activities like SGA, mentoring, and Quiz Bowl, and church life. We were weird in that we couldn’t be pigeonholed into what have become the standard categories for high school society (i.e. the nerds, the jocks, the freaks, the goths/emos, etc.).

Thanks be to God that we weren’t categorized as any of those things. We were able to see that friends could be made of all types of people, and that we could all work independently of a social group to succeed in school and society. We avoided, for the most part, what could be called the “usual high school drama.”

High school ended, and we went our separate ways. The men my friends have become, I think, have reflected their ability to not be pigeonholed; they have adapted, transitioned, and thrived in just about every way. (Can you tell I’m proud of them?)

I’m so thankful for the experiences that I had in high school, but I’m also thankful for my time at Mississippi College and at Baylor University. The point is that my friends and I have all grown up and left behind the would-be drama of high school to embrace the fullness of life. Since we largely avoided that drama to begin with, the growing up was perhaps less shocking and painful than it could have been.

Now consider a recent post[1] by Lutheran pastor the Rev. Erik Parker in which he likens Evangelicalism to a high school. He calls Driscoll, Piper, and Eldridge the “football team” because “the crowds love them, but most cannot see that they are also the bullies.” Myer and Osteen are the “rich kids,” and Rachel Held Evans is the valedictorian. In Parker’s metaphor the Mainline denominations are the “parents” and “teachers” who “brought them into the world.”

Parker’s central point is that Evangelicalism “needs” the Mainline denominations for their experience and wisdom. The Mainline needs Evangelicalism for its “drama to remind us how important this faith business” is.

Likening the Evangelical milieu to high school, especially when the Mainline is cast as the teachers and parents, is disingenuous and anachronistic. To do so is to portray the Evangelical movement as young, immature, and under the tutelage of the Mainline “adults” who try to mold the students into their own image. Evangelicals are not in the midst of some maturation process that will eventually graduate them to Mainline status; the Evangelical movement is not the Mainline precisely because it cannot become the Mainline.

The Rev. Parker wants to argue that the Evangelicals need the Mainline and vice-versa, but calling those same Evangelicals the students while his own tradition is the great teacher and parent causes “Evangelical” to lose its historical meaning completely.[2] His metaphor assumes that if Evangelicals would just grow up a little bit they would see their “drama” for what it is and merge with the other sober-minded Mainline Christians in our culture.

Further, Rev. Parker misses the irony that one cannot so easily stereotype Evangelicals into his or any other category. There are not “bullies” or “nerds” or “valedictorians” in the Evangelical camp; these believers flow into and out of and among any categories. The Mainline thinks in categories because it has, in many cases, an ordered hierarchy to clearly define those categories. Baptists, at least, have no such hierarchy and therefore are incapable of categorization. If a specific preacher, author, or believer acts in a way that resembles the jock, the nerd, or the freak, then so be it. Trying to cast the entire Evangelical movement as the children in a school with its drama, though, just doesn’t work.

One final note: the Evangelicals don’t need the Mainline in the way that Rev. Parker thinks. The Evangelical movement has been doing its own thing for enough generations now to understand that wisdom and calmness can be euphemisms for apathy and hollow spirituality. Evangelicals are also not blind to the “grey areas of faith,” nor are Evangelicals ignorant of the tensions these grey areas produce. Evangelicals live in these areas every day, just like Mainline believers.

In my own context of teaching high school students and witnessing their drama, I’ve come to understand that “the struggle is real.” More specifically, I’ve learned that the best teacher I can be is the one who invests in the drama, not to chide, criticize, or tell the students to grow up, but because the love of God in Jesus Christ is found in how I respond to that struggle, that drama.

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[1] http://millennialpastor.net/2014/01/06/evangelical-drama-needs-Mainline-experience/

[2] The meaning of “Evangelical” is slippery at best. My dear friend Roger Olson holds out hope for the term, however, in spite of calls by others to abandon the word in favor of something more solid.

Football Fandom Fail

SEC fans worship twice on the weekends: once at the Cathedral on Saturday, and once in Church on Sunday.[1] I grew up in the Baton Rouge area and have experienced this holy season myself - the anticipation, the singing, the offering, and the benediction. Of course, the next day at church I was usually sunburned and hoarse. Some of my friends take their fandom too seriously to the detriment of their careers, families, and sanity. I can name some pastors who do the same, though.[2]

The balance between our sports fandom and our devotion to God has gotten some necessary attention in recent years. Christianity Today made that relationship a cover story in February 2010.[3] Since then other articles in that publication have appeared addressing church attendance as it relates to sports, specifically youth sports.[4] Other Christian publications have also published thoughtful, questioning pieces on our relationship with sports as believers.[5]

The Church in America has responded to our cultural love of sports in predictable ways. Some have done nothing, forcing parishioners to make binary choices between being “faithful” in their attendance on Sunday mornings and taking their kids to practice. Some have changed their entire weekly schedule, incorporating Saturday or Thursday evening worship services to accommodate the commitments of their congregations.

I am personally conflicted when it comes to this topic. I’m a college football and basketball fan. I don’t have children old enough to participate in sports on Sunday, and because I’m a preacher’s kid I generally missed the NFL and other Sunday sports growing up because I was at church all day. I understand the pastor’s frustration of losing attendees to sports practice, but I also am not as committed to attendance as a marker of righteousness.

One pastor has gone too far.[6] Deadspin.com has reported on an Evangelical Lutheran pastor who conducted a one-minute Sunday service because he wanted to see the kickoff of the 49ers playoff game.[7] (PLEASE go watch the entire one-minute service HERE) This priest even sported a 49ers t-shirt under his cassock which he revealed Superman-style at the conclusion of his “service.”

I hope that somewhere in the ELCA hierarchy this video causes a fuss. In my own Baptist context, though, where there is no true denominational oversight, such antics would probably go un-chastised so long as the congregation was onboard.[8]

I’m a fan of several sports teams, but to me this is unconscionable. To abandon a service because of a football game is ludicrous, especially in the age of the DVR. This pastor decided that his desires as a fan outweighed the needs of his congregation. They don’t need a perfunctory “ok, that’s great, you are” in the face of their sins being forgiven. They probably don’t “know enough about” the wine and servant hood themes of the New Testament. They certainly do not need a self-service buffet that makes a mockery of the Table. They should have gotten more than the afterthought blessing and a hasty exit.

As pastors we must understand that we are not just fans, just like we are not just members of the congregation. Even in Baptist churches where every member is a priest of the Church, the pastor must conduct his or her life with intentionality and awareness. Skipping out on one of the most visible signs of the congregation’s life to see a football kickoff demonstrates a pitiful understanding of the office of pastor and, more importantly, an unwillingness to sacrifice personal desires on the alter of God’s calling.

Let this be a negative example to us. Be a fan, cheer loudly, support your team. But in the name of Christ do your job. Fulfill your calling. Serve the people. Do not abandon them or their needs in worship and service because your team is in the playoffs. God’s calling is worth more than that, and demands our best.

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[1] I think Scott Van Pelt of ESPN said this first, but I cannot find a source to attribute it to him.

[2] These pastors represent the opposite of the argument of article. They are the ones who give up their family relationships and very identities in service to their congregation.

[3] Shirl James Hoffman, “Sports Fanatics: How Christians have succumbed to the sports culture - and what might be done about it” Christianity Today 54 (2010): 20-28.

[4] Ruth Moon, “Game Changer: Pastors Blame Kids’ Sports for Attendance Dips” Christianity Today 57 (2013): 15; Megan Hill, “The Sunday Sports Dilemma” http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2013/june/sunday-sports-dilemma-church-practice.html; Mark Householder, Benjamin J. Chase, and Ted Kluck, “Are Sports the Problem? Three Views” Christianity Today 54 (2010): 26-27.

[5] Benjamin J. Dueholm, “Unnecessary Roughness: the moral hazards of football” Christian Century 129 (2012): 22-25; John White, “The enduring problem of dualism: Christianity and sports” Implicit Religion 15 (2012): 225-241; Fabrice Delsahut, “Jeux sportifs et religion amerindienne” Studies in Religion 42 (2013): 3-22; Rush Otey, “Christian faith and sports” Journal for Preachers 32 (2009): 32-48.

[6] I’m sure that there are many, many pastors that take their fandom too far; this one just sent me over the edge today.

[7] http://deadspin.com/pastor-gives-worlds-shortest-sermon-to-make-49ers-kic-1500227690

[8] Interestingly enough, the congregation in the video seems to be as excited about the short service as the priest.

My Philosophy of Education

I was named Clinton Alternative School's "Teacher of the Year" this year. As a part of the portfolio I was asked to produce for the next round of that process (the District level) I was required to write a "Philosophy of Education."

I genuinely struggled to write the document for two reasons. First, I felt that the assignment was so broad that I couldn't wrap my arms around the essential nature of my teaching philosophy. Certainly such a paper would be too long and esoteric for the purposes of the Teacher of the Year process. I was afraid I would wind up writing a dissertation.

Secondly, I was unsure about the forthrightness of my answers. Should I actually tell this committee how I feel about education vis-a-vis standardized testing? Should I intimate my feelings about grades and behavior with my specific set of children? I was worried that if I was honest I'd be disqualified and perhaps be labeled persona non grata among my peers.

After almost a month of thinking and fretting, I generated a brief (albeit heavily-footnoted) statement about what I believe about teaching. My readers might not be interested in such a document, but I include it here because it reflects my heartfelt theological conviction that teaching is important to the Church. The text of the document follows.

Philosophy of Education[1]

What gets me up in the morning to go teach math, admittedly not my students’ favorite subject, at the Clinton Alternative School? I find that I thrive in the environment of CAS, and those feelings must have something to do with what I believe about myself, my students, and the broader world of education. This essay, I hope, will lay out some of my core assumptions, understandings, and beliefs about teaching the way I teach.

My philosophy of education begins with faith. Fundamental to everything I am as an educator is my understanding of humanity as framed by my Christian perspective on the world. Specific to this understanding is the notion of the Imago Dei, or the theological idea that human beings are created in the image of God.[2] Although this theology is at no point introduced in my classroom, I believe it has a profound effect on who I am as a teacher and how I interact with my students at the Alternative School.

            If my students are made in the image of God, then they must be understood and seen from the perspective of God, insofar as that is possible.[3]  We must understand our students, then, as more than their biological natures or as the products of their unique upbringings. Our students have inherent dignity and worth that must be the beginning point of our teaching. They are worth teaching and are worth our best efforts to make them as successful as we can. According to my underlying philosophy rooted in the imago Dei, then, “human dignity must be understood as creatively posited by God with the fact of human existence. It is not dependent on the existence of a quality which humans posses. Rather, it is the presupposition for all qualities humans posses…”[4]

            This is essential to my teaching philosophy at the Clinton Alternative School. Our students, with few exceptions, present personalities, habits, and attitudes that make them difficult to manage in a classroom and contribute to their need for academic remediation. Understanding that each student has a value beyond their specific qualities or performance is the first step in the re-humanizing process that I plan to go through with each of them.[5] It is the posture that each student has inherent value in the eyes of God that prepares me for each lesson and each encounter with admittedly difficult students and situations at the school.

            My core educational philosophy, then, is this: relationship precedes moral (and academic) performance.[6] By this I mean that my relationship with my students comes before, both temporally and ontologically, any expectation I might have of their behavior or academic ability. They are not defined by their behavior, and they are not defined by their academic performance. My presence in their lives and in the classrooms of the Alternative School is about something more fundamental than that; it is about forming and developing healthy relationships with the students that lead to their being humanized by the educational process. First and foremost they are human beings who are deserving of the highest values of society: honor, love, belonging, and the donation of dignity that they most likely will not willingly receive or understand.

If a relationship can be established with my students, then I can begin the truly valuable task of educating them. Traditional approaches to teaching mathematics content have, in the majority of cases, failed to bring my students along. Thus an approach that meets them where they are emotionally, spiritually, and academically may prove to be best to engender success among them. This is the goal of the relationships I form with my students. I aim to find them at their core, gently motivate them, and show them that there is a part of them that can be successful academically and socially.[7] If the relationship comes first, then the academics will follow, and, I hope, the target behaviors will as well. My students are not mere “behavior plans” nor are they “behavior problems;” they are people who need my love and mercy. My lesson plans, then, always begin with those two things: love and mercy.

As demonstrated above, my position on relationship-first teaching is neither novel nor unique. This emphasis, though, places me at odds with contemporary education theory and practice. Many educators in America are influenced by Skinner’s pedagogical philosophy based on “behaviorism.”[8] This understanding of teaching assumes that the beliefs, intentions, and settings of a students actions are unknowable that therefore irrelevant to the task of teaching. I understand, along with MacIntyre, that such a position is untenable in experimentation and in practice in the classroom.[9] I do not want to stand intentionally at odds with my peers or with those great lights in education who have gone before me; however, the formation of relationship before correcting or even examining behavior is too important to me to cede my position.

My students are human beings, not human “doings.”[10] Part of my task as an educator is to continually humanize my students, often over and against the de-humanizing forces of their culture. I have found that a part of their culture that tends to see them as creatures meant for production can be their school. I try to limit the load of work that I assign to my students. I look for that balance point between assignments that are necessary for their mastery of the content and those that become onerous and sources of frustration and angst among them. My academic expectations for my unique set of students are not different from teachers at other schools; my expectations are, however, tempered to meet the needs of those students. They will be successful in my classroom, both academically and emotionally. I will not burden them with unnecessary work nor will I allow myself to value them based upon their performance.

I am a teacher. Teaching is not something I do. Teaching is a part of my being: my spirit, my mind, my body. Teaching is not in the content of my lessons or the scores on my tests; it is in the relationships that I form and grow with my students. To teach, in my heart, is to offer humanity, real, God-inspired humanity to my students. It is the greatest, hardest, and most central part of who I am. Even on my worst days at Clinton Alternative School, I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther when he faced his most challenging day in court: “Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.”[11]

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[1] My great thanks to the committee for their consideration and for their time to read this admittedly difficult document.

[2] Grenz et al. define the Imago Dei as “the uniqueness of humans as God’s creatures. In the Genesis creation account Adam and Eve are said to be created in God’s image and likeness (Gen 1:26-27). Theologians differ on what the image of God actually refers to, but most agree that the image is not primarily physical. Instead the imago Dei may include the presence of will, emotions, and reason; the ability to think and act creatively; or the ability to interact with socially with others. Scripture attributes the imago Dei solely to humans…” See Stanley J. Grenz et al, “imago Dei,” Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1999, 63.

[3] See Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Nature and Destiny of Man, New York: Scribners, 1953.

[4] R. Kendall Soulen and Linda Woodhead (eds.), God and Human Dignity, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006, 51.

[5] This has been informed by education writer Haim G. Ginott. He writes, “I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” Haim G. Ginott, Teacher and Child, New York: Scribners, 1993.

[6] I have developed this idea thanks in large part to the writing of Miroslav Volf. See especially his Exclusion and Embrace, Nashville: Abingdon, 1996.

[7] My understanding of relationship as a prerequisite to learning comes from my reading and interpretation of Plato’s works on education, specifically Gorgias. McEwan comments on this work that “Plato opposed [the] conception of the teacher as someone who did something to someone in contrast to his own view of the teacher as someone who did something with someone. The asymmetry in the relationship between teacher and pupil that the sophists advanced—the idea that teaching was a one-way affair with the teacher always in control—had little to do with how learning took place. In effect, sophists treated their pupils as little more than customers to be pleased rather than co-inquirers in search of the truth.” McEwan further reinforces my perspective by saying, “In order to teach someone something, a prior relationship must be established based on a special affinity between teacher and pupil—a sort of marriage of true minds or a match that connects people who have souls that are alike. This is what Plato’s elaborate myth about the heavenly journey of the soul in the company of a favored god teaches. Relationship precedes method. In terms of Plato’s elaborate metaphors, Socrates must be a matchmaker before he can be a midwife.” See Hunter McEwan, “Narrative Reflection on the Philosophy of Teaching: Genealogies and Portraits,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 45 no 1, 125-40.

[8] For a helpful introduction to this theory of educational philosophy, see B. F. Skinner, About Behaviorism, New York: Vintage, 1976.

[9] MacIntyre comments about Skinner, “There is no such thing as ‘behavior,’ to be identified prior to and independently of intentions, beliefs, and settings.” Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (3^rd ed), Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame, 2010, 208.

[10] I first heard this phrase on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” on ESPN Radio. He certainly did not come up with the idea, but he is the one who started my thoughts in this way.

[11] Brecht, Martin. (tr. Wolfgang Katenz) "Luther, Martin," in Hillerbrand, Hans J. (ed.) Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 2:463.