Christian Education in a Secular Age

Last month I wrote a blog post about how I was reading Charles Taylor's A Secular Age for a conference paper proposal I was writing. Last week I submitted the proposal and I hope to hear back by the end of the month about whether it will be accepted. If accepted, I'll be presenting the full paper at Christian Education in a Secular Age, an online conference hosted by Briercrest Seminary. 

In an interesting twist, after submitting the proposal I received an email from one of the conference organizers who noticed my focus on pastoral education. She put me in touch with one of her colleagues who was looking to collaborate on a round-table discussion about clergy resilience and the implications for pastoral education. After an email exchange, I agreed to join Margaret Clarke, assistant professor of marriage and family therapy at Briercrest, and Beth Fisher, a PhD candidate a researcher involved with Wycliffe's Wellness Project in a roundtable discussion at the conference. I am humbled and honoured to be at the virtual table with these two researchers. We are going to meet at the end of this month for some initial planning and brainstorming. I look forward to seeing where the conversation leads.

Wisdom and Eloquence in Christian Education

A few days ago I read the beginning of Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans book, Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning. Littlejohn and Evans' thesis is simple: Wisdom and eloquence are two essential aspects of Christian education. If you're like me, you might be a bit skeptical. Take the references to wisdom and eloquence in the Christian scriptures for example. There are many places in the Bible that reference wisdom positively (e.g., 2 Ch. 1:10; Pr. 2:6, 9:10, 23:23, 31:26; Col. 2:3; Jas. 3:13, etc.) but what about eloquence? The eloquence texts tend toward the negative. Those texts provide examples whereby God chooses to work through less than eloquent people (Ex. 4:10; 1 Cor. 2:1). Actually, Paul's reference to the the abusive "super apostles" in 2 Cor. 11 appears to highlight the foolishness of their eloquence in comparison to Paul who calls himself an untrained speaker. (2 Cor. 11:6).    

Nevertheless, Littlejohn and Evans make an intriguing case for elevating the status of eloquence alongside wisdom. In their first chapter they write:

After wisdom, eloquence was the second of Augustine’s indicators of a properly educated Christian. Before Homer first composed the lyrical speeches of The Iliad in the eighth century B.C., Westerners valued oratorical skill as a sign of great leadership. Augustine had been a renowned professor of rhetoric at the time of his conversion. Though he was raised by a Christian mother in a rural part of North Africa, his recognition of the superior eloquence of the great Roman orator Cicero (106-43 B.C.) had actually prevented him from being able to appreciate the comparatively rustic, Hebraic style of the Scriptures. Augustine’s first personal encounter with a highly trained Christian orator, therefore, had profound effect. He found himself compelled to listen to and, finally, to believe the gospel as articulated by Ambrose, the towering bishop of Milan (Littlejohn and Evans, 2006, p. 15).

There might be something about a clear articulation of the gospel that requires eloquence. However, the Christian scriptures are filled with examples of wise people who struggled to speak yet where somehow empowered by God's Spirit to communicate the Good News.