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CULTURAL VANDALISM

by Solas

Removing religious education from schools condemns our children to ignorance about a key dimension of human life. 

By JOHN DICKSON

IF a devout group of naysayers get their way there will come a time, soon, when there won’t be any  sympathetic religious instruction in our schools. It’s time for those who know the positive benefits of  religious education — the parents, teachers, and principals — to speak up before a dreadful decision to cut programmes across Europe is made.

None of us wants our children proselytised. That’s a given, and religious education programmes should never be set up to convert anyone. At the same time we do want our kids to learn a bit about the story of the Bible, the life and teaching of Jesus, and the ethics that shaped much of our world. To deny children this is to deprive them of their own cultural backstory.

I speak as a Christian but I am sure my Jewish, Muslim, Baha’i, Hindu, and Buddhist neighbours will be able to read my argument through their own lens. Few things are more culturally influential than religion.

The main arguments against sympathetic religious education miss the mark. Some of the naysayers cite anecdotes of kids going home to mum in tears after a scripture teacher’s insensitive remark about sin, or their denial of Santa, or because a piece of literature was handed out that does drift into proselytising. This can, and should, easily be fixed with better protocols and training.

Others climb the secular high-horse and intone about the separation of church and state as if we were living in the United States. But much of Europe’s roots lie in a more sensible “soft” secularism: Religion should neither be imposed nor excluded. Well-conducted religious education programmes reflect this balance perfectly. It is available but voluntary, and ethics classes offer an excellent alternative.

Others suggest religious education creates divisions. After all, it has the word “religion” in it. But there’s no evidence of that. It isn’t even intuitive. Dividing students into school houses, sports teams, grades, reading levels, boys and girls, and religious education tracks, is perfectly normal and healthy. These kids will grow up in a society that includes people of all faiths and none. Shouldn’t they learn to navigate the vibrant differences of our pluralistic society? Religious education has an added built-in safety mechanism, since each religion’s curriculum teaches respect for all.

Finally, some anti-religious education campaigners propose what they call a“neutral’’ approach where the teacher, rather than volunteers, takes kids through all of the world religions as part of the curriculum. It sounds plausible but in reality is unworkable. With everything else teachers have to know and do, they are never going to be able to understand the Bible as well as, say, the middle-aged mum from the local church who’s been reading scripture for decades. And that’s just the Christian text. Imagine insisting teachers learn the vast intellectual traditions of the Talmud, the Upanishads, the Tripitaka, the Quran and Hadiths.​

Religion is one of the most significant features of culture through the ages and parents should be able to allow their kids to give it a sympathetic hearing in a trusted environment. 

Dr. John Dickson
Author, historian and founding director of the Centre for Public Christianity in Sydney. A version of this article first appeared in the Daily Telegraph (Sydney).

WHY WE NEED THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON

by Solas

True knowledge arises from a deep contemplation of the wonders of creation.
BY DAVE BOOKLESS

Today’s environmental problems are so complex they often seen intractable. To tackle them, we not only need politics and economics, science and technology. We also need great wisdom to move towards a more sustainable and just world. But where can we find it? 
King Solomon was renowned for his wisdom. In response to God’s astonishing offer, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you,” he could have requested security, prosperity, health or happiness. Instead, he chose wisdom. As a result, “God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore”.  
Today, we tend to think of wisdom as primarily self-knowledge and understanding of human society. While Solomon could judge human dilemmas wisely (as in the famous example of the two women who both claimed a baby was theirs) the heart of his wisdom lay elsewhere. 
Ellen Davis, professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School in the United States, writing about Proverbs, says “wisdom means holding two things together: discerning knowledge of the world plus obedience to God”. Christians are familiar with the second of these from the familiar biblical adage: “The fear [reverent awe] of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7, Psalm 111:10), but what about “discerning knowledge” of the natural world? 
According to 1 Kings 4:33-34, Solomon was a dedicated naturalist: “He spoke about plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also spoke about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. From all nations people came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.” At the heart of the wisdom of Solomon was close, detailed observation of the flora and fauna of the ancient Near East. Just as Jesus instructed his followers to become botanists and ornithologists in order to live worry-free lives, so Solomon’s wisdom was rooted not in books or philosophical discussion but in deep immersion in God’s works. 
Throughout Christian history there are examples of those who took Solomon’s path of natural wisdom. The Desert Fathers and the early Celtic saints combined meditating on God’s revelation in nature and scripture. Francis of Assisi embodied a Christocentric spirituality that recognised other creatures as fellow members of the community of creation. John Ray, Gilbert White and William Carey are among many others whose wisdom arose from a deep contemplation of the wonders of God’s world. 
Today, we need to recover this kind of wisdom. Outdoor field studies should be a part of the educational curriculum for every young person. Studying ecology and wildlife to a professional level needs to be affirmed as a holy and important Christian calling. However, studying nature cannot be left to scientists alone. What is required for wisdom is not only the detached rational enquiry of science but also the immersed, meditative contemplation of artists and poets. 
“It is regrettable that the church has in the last three centuries largely lost sight of the fact that ‘nature wisdom’ is indispensable to an accurate estimation of the proper human role in God’s creation,” says Professor Davis. “Perhaps the time has at last come for the revival of this branch of theology.” In an increasingly globalised, virtual and digital world, all who would seek wisdom need a close attention to their environment. Getting to know the local species and habitats should be part of worship and godly wisdom for every Christian.  
We cannot understand God’s character and purposes without looking at what God has made. We cannot understand what it means to be human unless we know how ecosystems function and how we belong within them. Jesus humorously pointed out that wayside flowers were better dressed than even King Solomon.  
We cannot find wisdom second-hand by reading books by wise people. We find wisdom by seeking God and by getting to know our place, within the places that God has placed us. 
 

Dave Bookless is Advisor for Theology and Churches for A Rocha International (www.arocha.org) 
@dave_bookless 

VAN GOGH AND GOD

by Solas

Celebrated as one of the world’s most influential artists, often neglected is the thread of Christianity that wove itself throughout the Dutch post-impressionist’s brief and at times turbulent life.  BY SUSAN MANSFIELD

I remember, once, listening to the curator of a major Van Gogh exhibition give an account of the artist’s life. Looking faintly embarrassed, she moved swiftly over the period in which Vincent Van Gogh was a pastor and missionary, as many art historians do. In the determinedly secular world of the Arts, it’s best to dismiss this as an interlude of “religious mania” and hurry on to the part where Vincent picks up a paintbrush.  
But I have long thought that there might be another way to look at this, that a strand of faith might run through all of Van Gogh’s life. The man I see expressing himself in his paintings and his lively, articulate correspondence is a man concerned with the spiritual. Were it not so unfashionable, I wonder what light this perspective might shed on his work.  
This year, exhibitions and events across Europe are marking the 125th anniversary of Van Gogh’s death. The history of psychology is littered with attempts to analyse his life and posthumously diagnose his various illnesses. Though recent scholarship suggests it is incorrect, the image many people retain of Van Gogh is of Kirk Douglas, in the 1956 film Lust for Life, painting in a frenzy while crows circle overhead, the madman who died as a martyr to his art. 
There is little room in this for Van Gogh, the Christian, but such he was. A third-generation son of the manse, he left school unsure what he wanted to do, and was helped by an uncle into a job with art dealers Goupil & Cie in The Hague. He later transferred to London where, in 1876, he parted company with the dealership. After a short period as a teacher, he sought – and obtained – a job as an assistant to a Methodist minister in Isleworth. He was 22. 
He preached his first sermon there at the end of October, and sent the text to his brother, Theo. In it, he draws on the importance of the faith in which he had been raised: “I still feel the rapture, the thrill of joy I felt when for the first time I cast a deep look into the lives of my parents, when I felt by instinct how much they were Christians. And I still feel that feeling of eternal youth and enthusiasm wherewith I went to God saying: ‘I will be a Christian too’.” Some biographers have concluded that his shift towards religion was a reaction to being spurned in love (by the daughter of his London landlady), but his letters suggest something more. He wanted, he wrote, “to realise great things for humanity”.

Some biographers have concluded that his shift towards religion was a reaction to being spurned in love but his letters suggest something more. He wanted, he wrote, ‘to realise great things for humanity’. 

Van Gogh seems to have been a good, and diligent, pastor. Back in the Netherlands the following year, he studied to apply for theological college, but failed to pass the entrance exam. Instead he took a probationary post as a missionary among the mining villages of the Borinage, Belgium’s black country. Living among the people, he gave Bible lessons and visited the sick, distinguishing himself by working tirelessly to help the injured after a series of firedamp explosions in the mines. He lived a life of radical poverty, giving away his clothes and shoes and exchanging his modest bed for a palette of straw. At the end of three months, the mission announced it would not engage him further. 
Van Gogh’s asceticism made people uncomfortable, as has been the case before and since with those who attempt in a literal way to live out the radical lifestyle taught by Jesus. Organised religion, it seemed, had shut its doors on him and gradually, in the months that followed, he turned towards art. But still, he continued to push the boundaries of radical compassion. Surely this was behind his decision to take in Sien, a former prostitute who was working as an artist’s model, and her sick child – a move which alienated another set of middle-class sponsors. 
His first artistic subjects were the peasants of Nuenen, whom he painted with a dignity and worth normally reserved for those who could pay for it, manifesting in paint principles which had been central to his life as a missionary. In due course, he moved to Paris, then Arles, and his paintings filled with light and colour, even as his personal struggles with illness intensified. Still, the language of Christianity remained with him: again and again he painted images of sowing and reaping. He painted Christ in the garden, he said, but scraped the canvas back. He wrote to Theo that even in times of mental extremity, he was engaged in “the consideration of eternity”. 
His letters show a questing intelligence, a lively mind trying to make sense of the world and of mankind. To see his late paintings: the inky blue skies full of stars, the golden cornfields, the trees resplendent with blossom, is to see paintings of ordinary scenes which transcend the ordinary world. They continue to strike a chord, and have become some of the most popular paintings in the history of art. Vincent never knew this: the odds in the struggle were stacked against him. But he “realised great things for humanity” after all.