October 2011
What makes education Christian?
Tomorrow will not be like yesterday. Today is already different, but
tomorrow, the second decade of the year 2000, will be like no other. Here’s
one reason. This week we ‘celebrate’ the arrival of earth-inhabitant number
7 billion.
When I was born in 1928, the world had 2 billion people, basically all
environmentally friendly. My maternal grandfather farmed with a
horse, 20 cows, a few pigs and a flock of free- running chickens. My paternal
grandfather, a grocer, came calling once a week with his horse-drawn two-
wheeled cart to barter coffee, tea or sugar for eggs. Then self-sufficiency
was primary for most. That’s no longer true.
Here’s the real reason. Tomorrow’s peak generation is basically oil-dependent, but faces a world where everything is past-peak: past oil-peak, past food-peak, past money-peak. That means people in school today will face a world with negative growth, in addition to horrific hurricanes, dire drought, terrible typhoons, horrendous heat and destructive downpours, according to Bill McKibben.
In his Eaarth he writes: “We have waited too long to stop the advance of global warming, and massive change is not only unavoidable but already on the way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways no human has ever seen. We have created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable, but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.”
McKibben shows that we can no longer rely on the false promise of endless growth; our hope depends on building the kind of society and economy that can concentrate on essentials, and create communities that will be able to withstand the pains of a planet perilously out of balance.
More than ever, Christian teaching should be based on article 1 of the Belgic
Confession, which answers the question, ‘how we know God’, with:
“First by the creation, preservation and government of the universe, since that universe is like a most elegant book, in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God, his eternal power and his divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20: all these things are enough to convict men and leave them without excuse.”
Getting to know creation, things visible and invisible as outlined in Colossians 1:15-20, and perceiving the current forces endangering it, are the foremost tasks of Christian ministries. An institution is truly Christian when the result is a lifestyle that can seamlessly be continued in the New Creation, the arrival of a renewed and purified earth.
Christians confess that God created the earth ‘in his name.’ That makes the earth holy. God has given his holy creation to us not as caretakers, not as stewards, but as owners. Psalm 115:16 says: “The highest heaven belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to humankind.”
This gift is irrevocable. God will not renege on his generous donation: we are one with the earth: our world today is our world forever. Any ‘heaven’ teaching detracts from the real purpose of Christianity.
Here is something to ponder. In Genesis 2:15 the Lord put Adam and Eve- that is you and me – in the garden ‘to work it and take care of it.’ When Joshua, who succeeded Moses as Israel’s leader, gave his farewell address to his nation, he pledged that “he and his household will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). I have been told by good authority that Joshua used the same verb of “serving the Lord” as God asked humanity “to take care of creation”, indicating that to work the garden (of the earth), to take care of it, and serving the Lord are one and the same thing.
Now, more than ever before in history, God wants to prepare us for “the new creation to come.” The word Education comes from the Latin verb e-ducere, which means to draw out and to bring up. To lead students toward an out-dated situation, a state belonging to a prior generation, is a waste of brain-power and money, and will only cause them to become disillusioned. One of the ten commandments is: “You shall not give false testimony,” which we daily do because our polluting oil-based way of life is a distortion of the Truth.
A teacher once told me that to confront students with such a radical picture will only make them depressed. However, the truth is never depressing: it will set us free. That is what Christianity-church-school-family-society- is all about: to set us free, and to face the future with an eye on Jesus, who will guide us no matter what.
Bert Hielema lives amidst trees and fields, in Eastern Ontario, and can be reached at bert@hielema.ca