Oct 19, 2021 | Teachers Talking
Talk 2 – What’s in a Name
When the four young men entered the Kings College, their names were changed. Their names – Daniel (God is my judge), Hananiah (the Lord shows grace), Mishael (who is like God) and Azariah (God helps), revealed their identities as sons of the God of Abraham. But Babylon couldn’t tolerate the uniqueness of Yahweh, and therefore changed their names. The intention was that they would be identified as sons of Babylon.
In our day, issues of life, identity and gender are no longer theoretical, but affect our children. What it means to be human has been re-defined. Western culture has de-valued the body by obsession with practices to reach some unrealistic ideals of physical beauty. “The veneration of the air-brushed, media-produced body conceals a hatred of real bodies.”[1]
In a post-truth culture, reality isn’t what it used to be – we are now in a world of our own construction. Expressive individualism is the understanding that each person realises their own humanity. Its salvation song is ‘to self-identify’ – name yourself. In the recent work of Professor Carl Trueman, a Christian theologian, the ‘Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self’, says that cultural amnesia, expressive individualism, and the road to sexual revolution, has led to sexual identity being the dominant theme of western culture.
Gender and sexuality have become the basis for an entire worldview, the source of ultimate meaning and healing, a means of redemption. An inadequate, impaired, or distorted sexuality will cause mental and emotional disorders. According to this worldview, sex is a human pleasure which is to be experienced if a person is to be whole. Instead of being an expression of relationship, it has become a meaning in itself. A Biblical moral framework is seen as the root of evil and free sexual expression is the path to redemption.
The story of cultural Marxism has also infiltrated our culture, with the intent to destroy the Biblical understanding of family and sexuality. Being a human person is no longer viewed as having a God-given design but is a social construct. The authentic self is no longer connected to the body. The real person resides in their feelings and mind and will. Jessica Savana, a trans-sexual model, and actor, created a video entitled “I am Not My Body.”[2]
The dilemma for our children is that “we do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are.”[3] As teachers, we must recognise that this is a crushing script for students to live by because their longings are contradictory and constantly changing. Being master of your destiny results in anxiety and hopelessness. Following our “disordered loves” is a blind search for the source of satisfaction that can’t be identified. C.S. Lewis described this as “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in the world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I’m made for another world” [4]
How can we as teachers help explore their identity that is a gift from God, not an achievement? We must recognise that our story is radically counter-cultural. Human design is about personhood, that includes being part of the earth from which we were created. The Bethlehem bombshell was the incarnation where God the Son took on a physical body. His physical resurrection is the splendid affirmation of creation. God will finally restore His people with resurrected bodies firmly planted in a renewed physical creation. Our bodies matter to God.
How can we unfold this story through our teaching and learning?
Here is an example of a science lesson entitled “A Glimpse of our own Instruction Book”.
Dr Francis Collins joined the University of Michigan in 1984 as a professor in human genetics. In 1993 he was appointed director of the National Centre for Human Genome Research. In this role, he oversaw the group that successfully carried out the human genome project. In June 2000 he made the announcement that it was humbling for him and awe-inspiring to realise that they have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously only known to God.
The biological world is full of information. DNA is a complex molecule with information encoded to build molecules called proteins. The human genome, the genetic code in each human cell, contains 23 DNA molecules containing from 500,000 to 2.5 million nucleotide pairs. Each nucleotide contains adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine. The order of these bases determines DNA’s instructions, or genetic code. Human DNA has around 3 billion pieces of information about a whole person.
At a conference held at Johns Hopkins University on the theme ‘What does it mean to be Human’, Dr Francis Collins, the co-director of the Human Genome Project, made his presentation. He showed two pictures on the screen. The first one was the rose window from York Minister Cathedral in York, England. The beautiful design in magnificent colours was like a great jigsaw puzzle, with each piece perfectly in place. Skilled craftsmen spent many hours fashioning each tiny piece of glass to be fitted meticulously together. Dr Collins then unveiled the second picture, alongside the first, which was more complex and beautiful than the first. There was a pin-drop silence, as he explained that we were looking at a cross-section of human DNA. As the audience gazed in wonder at the patterns made by more than 3 billion bits of information in that one strand, Dr Collins responded that he knew no other way to end his presentation than to sing to the Creator God a hymn in worship.
May the Lord direct us as we lead our students to embrace the reality that each one is “fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139: 14) Let us inspire them with a higher view of sexuality and gender by reconnecting their identity with their body, that in Christ they can experience wholeness and healing.
“He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.” (John 10: 3)
Grace and Peace
The TEC Team
[1] Nancy R Pearcy, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality, (Grand Rapids, USA: Baker Book House 2018), 32.
[2] Ibid., 31.
[3] Jean-Paul Sartre, Quotes About Existentialism, n.d. A-Z Quotes.https//wwwazquotes.com/author/13003-Jean_Paul_Satre/tag/existentialism
[4] CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, (London, UK: Geoffrey Bles, 1952), 120.
Oct 19, 2021 | Care Conversations
12. Knowing, Loving, Serving and Celebrating.
If these four things are valid components of community life, how do they inform some of our classroom, or school, practices?
Do we know our students, their gifts and abilities, their hopes and fears? Do we know when it’s their birthday – do we celebrate that in class, and do we send them a note or card?
How does assessment work in our classroom – does it contain a component that asks, “Now that I’ve learned this, how should I use my new knowledge to serve one another?”
Do our assessment processes celebrate progress as well as show achievement? Do our assessment processes communicate “if you can’t measure it, it’s not valuable?”
Do we actively encourage collaborative learning, brainstorming questions, discussion groups?
Do we encourage students to express gratitude and encouragement when someone comes up with new thoughts and ideas?
Do we have a culture where class members will call a classmate if they are absent and will pray for them if they are unwell?
Have we developed a culture where fellow students will take notes and collect materials to give to an absent student on their return?
Blessings
Brian
Oct 13, 2021 | Wens Pen
Hello Everyone
The heartbeat of God. 1John 4:10. As children, our family doctor would occasionally let us listen to our own hearts through his stethoscope. It was quite mesmerising to tune into the sound of our hearts pounding, and as we listened intensely, the beating was magnified with such clarity by the medical device. We were attuned, captivated and attentive. There was no other sound. As I recalled that memory, it made me realise what an incredible thing it is when we come to an understanding that the God of all creation has a heart that beats for us in a continuous rhythm of love. The heartbeat of God pulsates endlessly with a depth of love that can never be plumbed by finite minds.
As the heartbeat of God beats consistently and ceaselessly for us, we also realise that God is the incurable lover of our souls. Even if God wanted to, He could not change His love for us because the nature of God Himself is love and the heartbeat of God towards us, His children, is unbreakable. God has bound His own heart to our hearts and never has there been one who has pledged to love us without qualification, where we, the unworthy recipients become the beneficiaries of a love that is irreversibly ours.
The heartbeat of God flows down in love to our hearts that have been shattered by the fall. It flows down with an awareness that it may not flow back from those God loves unconditionally. But this does not change the heartbeat of God as it is unstoppable in its flow. As we search with lanterns in the depths of our own hearts for a love that will define every part of our beings, we become aware that it is only God who can and will love us perfectly. No other person can give this type of love. The heartbeat of God bathes us in His love moment by moment and when we realise even a small measure of the dimensions of His love, we are changed forever by the incurable Lover of our souls. Can you hear the heartbeat of God?
So, friends, get “God’s heartbeat” on today.
Best days to come.
Wen
Oct 12, 2021 | Care Conversations
11. Celebrating one another
We start by celebrating the beauty of God and the abundance of His grace. Then we must find ways of communicating that each person is an image bearer of God.
We need to help students to see that their giftings are designed to celebrate God and be involved in the redemptive tasks to which He calls us.
We must find ways to ensure that our students know that they are part of God’s grace to us and to one another.
It is important to constantly remind members of the school community, that the community is enriched by each person’s presence.
Be intentional about celebration; make it a habit.
Celebration calls attention to, or makes known, what is valued and important to the teacher and students in a class group.
Celebrate the completion of a unit of work. Celebrate progress made.
Celebration encourages us to see that we are part of community, rather than separate individuals
One dear teacher friend takes five minutes every couple of days to celebrate one of her students; thus, each person is celebrated each term. She tries to connect one of those celebration moments with that person’s birthday; when she can lead students to express gratitude and celebration of that person’s life and to thank God for them.
Initially she provided suitable questions and ideas to help these mini celebrations. This helped to create a culture of genuine appreciation and celebration.
How does having X in the class enrich our classroom community?
How does having X in our class increase our joy together?
What do you appreciate about how X relates to people?
What do you think is the greatest gift that X shares with us?
What would you like to say to X that would encourage them?
Her students, who readily entered this culture of celebration, insisted that she be celebrated each term also!
Blessings
Brian
Oct 6, 2021 | Teachers Talking
Talk 1: A Dangerous Song
Many years ago, four teenagers – Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, who were very intelligent and impressive young men, were displaced from their home and deported to Babylon. They were not imprisoned but entered Nebuchadnezzar’s training college in the royal court for three years, to be educated in the best of Babylonian learning, language and literature. What a shock it must have been to be displaced from the culture of Judah to live in the capital city of the supreme empire of the world, with all its majesty and seductive pleasures.
The intention of their education was clear – to re-make these influential young men into sons of Babylon. Every trace of their Israelite heritage, faith, identity and culture were to be obliterated through their participation in Babylonian culture, which was idolatrous at its heart.
No wonder the Israelites cried out as they sat by the rivers of Babylon. “How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137: 4).
“How do we live for Jerusalem, the city of God, in Babylon, the City of Man?” [1]
We are called by Christ to live faithfully in our times, for this is the pathway trodden by our Saviour. Christian schools are to be living and breathing communities who sing from a different song-sheet. Our cultures are to embody the troubling alternative to the culture of the dominant Empire. Peter Hitchens, brother of well-known atheist Chris Hitchens, when asked on the TV show Q&A what was the most dangerous idea in history, stated boldly that it was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ours is a dangerous song, for it calls not for retreat but that we be actively engaged in the saving and sovereign rule of the King.
Daniel does a dangerous thing. He remains faithful to Yahweh and the Torah, whilst serving well in the Empire. He lives by a radical set of promises that His God is bringing into reality, a new way of life. So, the questions come to us, “How do we raise up young men and women to sing about the new world that Jesus has brought into being?” “How do we struggle to maintain our commitment to the teachings of God’s Word in a culture that rejects them?” The answers to these complex questions around the relationship of the Gospel to human culture must be anchored in both belief and practice. “There is good and bad in every culture and there are developments continually going on in every culture, either in line with the purpose of God revealed in Christ for all human beings, or else out of line. [2]
Culture has been defined as “the effort to provide a coherent set of answers to the existential predicaments that confront all human beings in the passage of their lives.” [3] Put simply, it is the way human societies order their community lives.
From birth, we know that children are enculturated into a way of being in the world. ‘Enculturation’ is the process by which a person learns the content of a culture and assimilates its practices, beliefs, norms and values. Children learn about life firstly in their family. As they grow older, they are influenced by cultural factors, such as their peers, social media and their school. It is not just a matter of how an individual acts, but seeing behaviour as sharing in the life of an ordered community.
“How shall I live?” should be answered by a more fundamental question, “What kind of a community do I want to share in?”
Therefore, we are called to neither simply affirm or reject our culture. We are to “cherish human culture as an area in which we live under God’s grace … but we are called to remember … that … human culture was shown on … Good Friday to be in … rebellion against the grace of God.” [4]
In Jesus, the Kingdom of God has come near and as teachers, we will either radically recognise this truth or continue to face the wrong direction and pursue that which is opposed to the Kingdom of God. Daniel’s young life had been shaped by the truth about Yahweh and His relationship with His chosen people, Israel, so he was not seduced by the education that was idolatrous at its heart.
We must enter with our students into the exploration of what it means to be human in a culture where language is detached from meaning, truth is detached from reality and thinking is shaped by desires and appetites. Therefore, incoherence is now seen as normal. The Christian formation of our students require that we give them the cultural tools to challenge their culture’s dominant narratives. If we are to convey the God-Story of Jesus Christ with fidelity, we need to embody the cruciform-shaped way of life patterned on Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, demonstrating a new humanity characterised by faith, hope and love.
Missiologist, Lesslie Newbigin, gives us clarity for our true mission to our students.
“If the gospel is to be understood … if it is to be received as something which communicates the truth about the real human situation, if it is, as we say, ‘to make sense’, it has to be communicated in the language of those to whom it is addressed and it has to be clothed in symbols which are meaningful to them.
And since the gospel does not come as a disembodied message, but as the message of a community which claims to live by it and which invites others to adhere to it, the community’s life must be so ordered that “it makes sense” to those who are so invited. It must, as we say, “come alive”. Those to whom it is addressed must be able to say, “Yes, I see”. [5]
May the Lord richly bless you as you take every opportunity to be equipped for this new day.
“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven”. Matthew 5: 16
Grace and Peace
The TEC Team
[1] Reference to Augustine’s Theme in ‘The City of God’ written in 426 AD.
[2] Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (Washington, USA: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989), 197.
[3] Daniel Bel, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, (New York, USA: Basic Books, 1978), XV.
[4] Ibid., 195.
[5] Ibid., 141.
