Sore Subject

The church, historically, has made many errors.  As a matter of fact, it is quite possible they have done as much harm as they have done good as far as influencing people to come to Christ.  One of the problems I see that the church has exacerbated is the subject of sin. 

One could spend days debating how God views sin and how the church views sin, this discourse is by no means an exhaustive study of the subject.

First I must say as Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:15  “ This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”  I do not have these opinions because I am without sin.  On the contrary, I have chosen poorly far too many times in my life that I know first hand the grace of our Lord but I also know the pain that is the result of bad choices.

It is my theory that the historical church made sin a diabolical, hideous and damning thing in order to scare people into making right choices.  From the inquisition days to Bible thumping preachers, church leaders have tried to intimidate people into walking the straight and narrow.  It was especially easy when the general population didn’t have access to scriptures.  It is a knee jerk reaction to try to scare others into performing as one would like them to perform.  

In some ways this works, though generally only for a short time.  It made most become quite proficient at just hiding where they stray from the straight and narrow; creating more problems with deception and lies.  There is truth in the need to make good choices but more truth in grace.

The biggest problem I see with this outlook is they don’t measure in God’s grace.  The fact that humans can never be good enough and walk straight enough to stand in front of God without the blood of Christ, should be the first thing taught.  The most important thing taught!  ONLY by God’s grace, through the blood of Christ, can ANY of us stand before God.   The Bible thumping does nothing but create fear, and/or make us into liars to pretend we are good enough to deserve the grace, no matter how many mission trips you go on, or how many times you give to the poor, or are poor, without grace, you are nothing.

Some modern congregations have gone the other way.  They see the fear and lies of the past and do not want to replicate that.  Admirably, except, they seem to imply with the cheap grace that is sometimes taught, that whatever we do is okay because Christ has already covered it with his blood.    The word sin isn’t mentioned for fear of offending someone because they want church to be a place where everyone should always be comfortable.   There is also truth in these teachings.  Grace DOES cover it all.  Thank you Jesus!  And Christ didn’t come to make us uncomfortable, he did, however, come to convict us.

I believe the whole truth lies somewhere in between these two extremes.  We need to understand that we NEED the grace that was provided for us at a terrible cost.  We need to humble ourselves enough to know we cannot do this alone.  Then because of our love for Christ (We love Him because He first loved us) we want to make good choices.  As we make the good choices we see that His way has a purpose, and is better, more joy, more peace and more adventure. 

In my life of almost half a century, the greatest thing I’ve experienced is being a parent.  Not only I have I experienced more joy, more love, more fear, more pain, more happiness, more sadness and so on, with the experience of parenting, but I’ve also learned far more about God’s love for us.  No one can love a person more than a parent loves their child, but God can and does.  WOW!  That is a big thought that only as we mature do we begin to comprehend.

Not only has parenting been the environment through which I’ve begun to learn what love truly is, but it has shown me how God must feel when we, His children, make choices that are less than the best for us.  As a parent, we are heartbroken, we try to intervene but usually the choices are made regardless.  Smart parents let their child feel the consequences of their bad choices.  Many parents struggle with this balance.  They are either too harsh with consequences, but more often than not, they make the consequences of bad choices go away.  Because, let’s face it, grounding a child is harder on a parent than it is the child.  Also, watching your child suffer the consequences breaks our hearts.  It takes a parent with guts of steel and a heart full of love to allow child to suffer at all.  Which is my theory of why many times children are not disciplined, parents are either too tired or weak to do it, or too angry to handle it with love, but that is another blog.

Imagine then, how our God feels when we make bad choices that He knows are not best for us; when we don’t love our neighbor, when we chose selfishly.  It breaks his heart that we chose in a self-destructive way.  It also breaks his heart as he must watch us suffer the consequences of our choices.  The most wonderful thing is, He doesn’t let us suffer alone and he took the final/ultimate consequence for us.  That is a perfect parent; a perfect God.

The beautiful thing is, God didn’t give us the Ten Commandments to shame us.  As a matter of fact when Jesus went one further and said to even think it is sin, he is showing us that our very nature falls short of Him.  As a matter of fact He tells us that we are His children, His treasure.    John Ortberg Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them says, “You now are invited to take your place in the eternal circle of self-giving love.”  I believe anytime we aren’t living like this, it is sin.  Sure there are the obvious sins that destroy this physical body, or others, but these things are just as big a barrier to keeping us from God as the obvious things. We fall short of His glory daily in ways we cannot articulate, but He doesn’t hold this against us.

Does this mean then we can live anyway we chose, God forbid.  Just has the sweet, fun relationship of parent and child is marred with a child’s bad choice so is our relationship marred with Him when we knowingly chose unwisely.  He is hurt, we don’t feel the openness of communication and joy and there are consequences on this earth we have to face.  For example, the Israelites didn’t have faith enough to go into their promised land, they whined and cried and didn’t want to follow God.  The consequence of their choice, that generation didn’t get to see the Promised Land, they spent the rest of their lives wandering in the desert.  They were still God’s chosen people, He still saved them from slavery, but they missed the blessing of seeing the promises of God being fulfilled.

We do this too with our choices.  A bad choice doesn’t mean we are no longer a child of God, or that He hasn’t covered our sins with His grace, but a bad choice has consequences on this earth.  This is the teaching that is missed sometimes.  What He wants from us is to want to be with Him, to want to have a close relationship with Him that isn’t hindered by choices.  That is also what I want for me.

Educating our future

Public education has always been a work in progress.  Our founding fathers had a grand idea that everyone should have a chance to learn, to better themselves and to make choices that could lead to a better life.  But public education has never been perfect.  From the one room school house where the poor teacher (figuratively and literally) had to deal with all grade levels, clean the school, start the fire and countless other things, to the contemporary teachers who either specialize in a subject or grade level, one thing remains; it’s HARD!  The general public doesn’t understand the demands on a teacher, never has, most never will.

This submission of thoughts is by no means the highest understanding or comment on education, but an humble collection of thoughts from a former teacher, a parent and an offspring of teachers/administer. 

My father began his teaching career in Oklahoma City in 1960, teaching self-contained 6^th grade, with a full classroom of 47 students.  I heard many stories about these years in OKC, he loved the students and enjoyed being with them, hearing their stories and being a part of their lives.  My dad’s career spanned more than four decades as a teacher and administrator of small rural schools.  My mother began teaching when I was small, she too loved being a part of the students’ lives.  They were phenomenal teachers because of the love they had for their students and because they knew that teaching takes work.  They were willing to learn themselves and try new things.

Before I became a mother, I myself taught 3^rd grade, then after my children were quite older and we had moved around quite a bit I taught first grade in another state.  This second school district I taught in was progressive in their methods.  They encouraged higher level thinking, problem solving and the administration even encouraged the teachers to read a book about disciplining with love.  They encouraged teachers to stay abreast of new developments in education and to be willing to change and learn.

While reading and learning and teaching I saw things about the highly successful school district that were similar to the way my parents taught.  I’ve since moved to another area but through all these years I have watched teachers.  I noted the teachers that students loved, the teachers that students respected and truly learned from and the teachers students mocked and endured due to lack of respect.  I’ve lamented the plight of teachers, the lack of respect they receive from most parents and the media.  I’ve been frustrated as the government tries to take charge of education knowing that this is not the key but leads to more disrespect as those in places of power, who are not teachers, begin to dictate what happens in the classroom. 

Regardless of one’s political or social point of view, one must admit that the most effective teacher is the one that builds a relationship with the students, the students know they care and thus respect.   This kind of teacher is the kind that can reach the heart of students and help open their eyes to the wide world of learning.  Of course the teacher needs to have a plan, to teach with a purpose and to be respectable, not just try to be a friend to the students.

Recently while reading one of C.S. Lewis’ books, The Abolition of Man, thoughts of the sad plight of education were brought to mind.  It is my belief that his thoughts confirm my thoughts; that too much education outside control kills the spirit of the educator and those being educated.   In chapter 1 he discusses, if one can understand this great mind, education and with eloquence beyond my capabilities he describes the shortcomings of a text book.  My interpretation is that students are being feed things that are opinions of others and not encouraged to think for themselves.  “Some pleasure in their own ponies and dogs they will have lost; some incentive to cruelty or neglect they will have received; some pleasure in their own knowingness will have entered their minds.  That is their day’s lesson in English, though of English they have learned nothing.”  And  “Where as the old initiated, the new merely ‘conditions’.  The old dealt with it’s pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly.  The new deals with them more as the poultry keeper deals with young birds – making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing.  In a word, the old was a kind of propagation – men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.”

I believe, as formulas were created to make educating the masses easier.  We started ‘feeding’ ideas to students instead of motivating them to think for themselves.  As history was rewritten to be more PG rated, to hide corruption  or even to remove Christian thoughts, even words of our founding fathers, our students lost the means by which to learn from history and it became a boring story, memorizing dates instead of hearing real stories about real people who lived, struggled experienced victory and defeat and died.  The subject English became a few text book writers’ choice of what is correct and acceptable the class became tedious and so have all subjects diminished. 

I have seen more good teachers than bad.  I’ve even seen more great teachers than bad teachers.  Unfortunately there are some that go into education because they see the summer’s off and the recipe books of how to get students to memorize the facts and think it is easy.  These are teachers that sit behind their desk all day, giving orders, handing out worksheets and playing on their computers or cell phones. 

With this in mind, how do we apply this to our public education system in general?  How can we hold teachers accountable (because all professionals should be held accountable) yet let them have this kind of relationship with students be creative in stimulating thought?  This is quite a conundrum.

I don’t have the answer to this difficult puzzle.  I do have some thoughts.  I would like to see the government red tape leave the classroom and the government trust the professionalism of teachers.  I would like to see teachers BE professionals.  I would like to see state testing like the TAKS or STAR abolished.  I would like to see teachers held accountable, but only accountable that the students they had improved from the previous year.  I do agree that teachers need a plan, a purpose, and objectives to teach toward, how they get there should be in any way that will motive and stimulate the students but not disrupt learning elsewhere.   I would like to see teachers remembering what they were taught in college about the bell curve.  A teacher, that makes everything so easy that most all make A’s and B’s, is not properly challenging the whole of the class.  Conversely a teacher who feels pride in their teaching skills if all students struggle and no one makes above a 65-70, is not properly educating the whole of the students.  I would like to see teachers that are passionate about their students and passionate about motivating in them a love of learning.  And now to the end of my list, I would like teachers to remember that to teach to or at students doesn’t help them grow.  Psychology has proven that when things are just a little out of their reach it helps them stretch and grow.  The truly connected loving and professional teacher can see where this point is with each student and help challenge them in learning.

I know this next thought will not be popular with the teachers unions but I feel strongly that if teachers are to be seen as professional then they must perform as a professional.  If a CPA is not up to performance, he is put on an improvement plan.  If no improvements are made over a certain amount of time they let him go.  All other professionals are held to this scrutiny, why not teachers, the hands on our future?  True, I don’t think a new administration should come in and wipe out teachers to replace them with his family or favorites, there should be that protection, as well as from false student/parental claims.  But professionals should be expected to do their job!

Basically, I would love to see my parents in every classroom.  They knew how to motivate, to inspire and most importantly, how to love.