Education as Essential

Two days ago, a young man with a British accent and a clipboard stopped me as I was walking through Manhattan after having lunch with my husband (! (Two weeks of marriage is not at all enough time to make this word mundane.)).

The young man was fund-raising for an organization that claims to "punch poverty in the face!" by provide basic care and education to children in impoverished countries. He asserted, in the course of his spiel, that education is the most important thing to get people out of poverty. When I looked skeptical, he demanded to know why. I didn't have a good answer. I mumbled about the primacy of food and water. It wasn't until I was walking away that it occurred to me that I believe knowing the true God is the most fundamental precondition for true success.

Anyway, I don't instinctively think of education as something that nourishes the human soul. "Learning," yes. "Education," no. But today I read this interview of a philosophy professor who teaches a course on hope in modern philosophy--at a maximum security prison! (Good read.) At the end of the interview was this exchange:

This program that you were doing is part of a Bard College Program to make a bachelor's-level education accessible for prisoners. Based on your experience, what do you think of the role of education for our prison population?

The facts are pretty compelling. The recidivism rate goes way down when people are involved in these kinds of programs—60 percent, I think, is the normal rate for people coming out of maximum security context, and it goes down to below 15 percent for people who've been involved in the Bard Program, and the ones who actually get the B.A. are even lower than that. For the ones who will get out of the prison someday, it becomes much more likely that they'll live productive or at least not-incarcerated lives in the future.

(From the Veritas Riff "Hope Unbound: A Philosopher Goes To Prison.")

If I had known those statistics, maybe I wouldn't have made such a face at the volunteer on Tuesday!

I wonder what the impact of more specific classes like the philosophy course discussed in the interview might be, statistically speaking...

Christian Identity / a quote I want to be able to find later

As I was eating breakfast this morning, I picked up a book I found lying on the counter. Reading a few pages, I was struck by this:

Some Christians base their identity on being a sinner. I think they have it wrong--or only half right. You are not simply a sinner; you are a deeply loved sinner. And there is all the difference in the world between the two.

Sin is a corollary to our primary status as greatly loved children of God. First we were loved into being, created in the good and sinless image of our Creator God. And although sin damaged that which had been utterly good, it allowed us to discover that God's love is directed toward us just as we are, as sinners. The sequence is important. We must never confuse the secondary fact with the primary truth.

Real knowing of ourselves can only occur after we are convinced that we are deeply loved precisely as we are. The fact that God loves and knows us as sinners makes it possible for us to konw and love our self as sinner. It all starts with knowing God's love.

(David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself, p. 64-65)

This is so well-put! Yay!

[... And that's all I really need to say about this. But here follows some of my thoughts/recollections that have to do with why I love these paragraphs.]

(1.)

I heard a distorted version of this argument a couple years ago when missionaries from a Korean Christian-esque cult (Good News Corps) interrupted my Bible study preparations when I was sitting outside at school. Their English wasn't very good, so it took a while to see how much of the confusion and expressed disagreement was due to language issues versus theological differences. They asked me if I was a Christian and if I believed that I am sinful and if I believed that I was saved, and then they kept saying that if you're a Christian, you can't/don't sin, because you've been brought out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God's light. I had a really hard time figuring out how much of what they said actually lined up with what I believe. In the end, I realized that I don't believe their central claim (saved people never sin). But I couldn't articulate what I actually believe (and what I believe the Bible teaches) without overemphasizing the fact that Christians do continue to fall short even once they've come into God's kingdom.

I think what I said to them was something along the lines of:

• I agree that the identity of the Christian doesn't reside in being a sinner
• and instead the identity of the Christian is as a follower of Christ and a child of God and as forgiven and redeemed
• but that doesn't mean that we already live entirely according to that new holy identity.

Our primary identity is as holy people, but our behavior (which in my definition covers thoughts and feelings as well as external actions) is still a work in progress. In conclusion, Christians do sin, and so it is true to say that I am a sinner.

I think I put my point across, but it's not good communication to pin such a freight of concepts onto a verbal distinction between sinner-as-identity vs. sinner-as-behavior. I'm really happy to have discovered Benner's passage which articulates the Christian (& human) identity so much more clearly, and then explores its significance--that "it all starts with knowing God's love."

(2.)

That last paragraph also connects with something I've been telling a friend who is a young Christian and who is deeply concerned about his sinfulness. He is extremely impatient to become a better person, and he is frequently frustrated at his slow growth. As a result, he is perpetually looking for things to do that will make him better.

And so I keep telling him that his focus is in the wrong place. He isn't going to become a better person by trying to be a better person. Doing good things does have good effects, but it doesn't change your identity. Transformation requires time and the uprooting of lies. (c.f. Grace + Truth + Time => Transformation, the sermon series from which this great sermon on Hosea comes) Focusing on our selves and our sin will not fix things. I told him he needs to lift up his eyes to Jesus and worship Him by giving Him his attention, because by focusing on his own sinfulness he is ultimately still being self-obsessed and self-worshipful.

I still think what I said to my friend was true. But again, Benner says it better. "It all starts with God's love." "God's love is directed toward us just as we are, as sinners."

(3.)

This passage of Benner's writing also speaks to a third thing in my life: Paul Washer's theology. I can't speak for exactly what Paul Washer actually believes, because it's possible that he is just using language in a much less precise way than I would like, and in a way that promotes some untruths. So I will address the things he says, and not worry too much about whether he really means exactly what he is saying.

Paul Washer preaches radical depravity (for instance, in this discussion), and his definition of the doctrine states that there is no good in humans whatsoever. I can't agree with that statement, because no matter how messed up a person is, a person is still a person. A person is created in the image of God, and even when that gets horribly distorted, that image is still there. I agree with Paul Washer that people cannot save themselves, and that we need provenient grace even in order to turn to God, but I can't agree that humans are completely devoid of goodness on their own--although, as my father brought up when I asked him about this, all goodness comes from God. "Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of the heavenly lights..." (James ?:?), especially life, so maybe it's absurd even to speak of being alive without God. I don't think that's what Paul Washer was talking about, though, because the question he is addressing in that clip is about election and whether God has picked out you, you and you to go to heaven, and you, you and you to go to hell. Ugh.

Anyway! I think Benner's second paragraph really speaks to the question of human goodness. On our own, entirely without God--well, we wouldn't even exist, much less be alive. Christ holds everything together (Col. 1:17), and "in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). These things are true of all of us, Christians or no. Also true of all humans is that "we were loved into being" (Benner)--Christians or no. There is no human who is utterly and totally devoid of goodness, because there is no human who is not made in the image of the perfect and good Creator.

Truth: it's a good way to start the morning. Thank God.

Persecution

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." I don't remember when I first heard this verse. I must have been a little girl, curled up in bed, my father reading to me and my sister by my side. I remember thinking, long ago, that I didn't have any enemies. I remember asking, long ago, what "persecute" meant.

These days, I know what persecution is. We recognize each other, persecution and I. Persecution is the acquaintance I run into every so often. I know its face, though I can't always bring its name to mind in time. We are not bedfellows; many people know persecution much better than I do. But I do know persecution.

I know its flavor: raw, bitter, tough, like kale just pulled from the ground. No amount of chewing dissolves it. When swallowed, it sticks in my throat. It fills my mouth with sand.

I know its color: by turns scarlet and green, depending how the light strikes it. At dusk, it looks black. By night, it is as dark as the rest of the world.

I know its sound: my name, screamed in a voice like nails. Rocks grinding together--or it might be teeth grinding--it's hard to say. You see, we don't know each other so very well, persecution and I.

But I know its name: Pain. The different parts of a person pronounce pain differently, but body and heart and mind, they all say the same name. I hurt, and what am I to do?

Love my enemies. Pray for the one who persecutes me.

Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief.