On the "Principles" of Christian Education

At Michael Westmorland-White's http://anabaptist418.blogspot.com has some interesting thoughts on the tragedy of Biblical illiteracy in the church. He has some ideas of how we might go about turning the tide.

My comments were the following:

The real objective is to get our whole community hearing and reading the scriptures again that their lives might be shaped by the narrative. But what I have found in most youth and children's curriculum is not a primary emphasis on the story (ie - Jonah and the fish) but on the "Biblical principle" that story is meant to teach. The question of course is, just what is that principle? And once we "get it" do we throw out the husk and keep the kernel?I think that is what we have primarily done and that is why we are in such a crisis right now in the way of Christian ed. We have stripped the scriptures of all their own creative powers and settled for good "Christian principles" like "be nice" and "share." No wonder kids think the Bible is so boring.

The idea of the creative power of story is really central to what I think we as the church most need to be teaching. If we can train our churches toward the point of what Richard Lischer calls "thinking in Bible", much like a native French speaker thinks in French, then I think we may come a long way back toward really seeing ourselves as living in the world of the Bible. Stories seem to have a much more compelling force than do "principles", which lack the imaginative power to testify to a God who creates something from nothing and raises life from death.

Perhaps G.K. Chesterton articulated best what I am trying to say in his book Orthodoxy (Harold Shaw Publishers 1994, p. 28)

The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.

The virtues of being a good boy and then growing up to be a nice gentleman simply fail at the point of creativity. And in that sense they are maddening because they are dull. And nothing is more maddening than dullness.

And here is my big concern - one MWW said he shares with me - The church can and should not count on an unbaptized secular school system (no matter how good it is). The church must be the one to teach us to pray and read the scriptures and love our neighbor as ourself.