Archive for the 'Education' Category

The Loves of Learning

Don July 28th, 2010

In Africa, one never knows what is going to happen.  Your plans are rough ideas that may have little resemblance to the actual ministry opportunities that present themselves.  I was expecting (since that morning) to address the students at St. Philip’s Secondary school in Kitale, Kenya, in an assembly at the end of their school day. But after they left, I was also unexpectedly invited to address the faculty in a separate meeting as they stayed behind.  “Why are we here?” I asked them—asking myself (in a different sense) the same question.  “Why are we doing this?” I continued, as the Lord helped me see a direction in which I could profitably go.  Teaching is not just another job, something we do to put food on the table.  It’s not just a slightly more prestigious form of factory work.  Unfortunately, many African teachers (and some Americans) look at it that way.  At least the Americans are reminded every payday that they aren’t doing it primarily for the money!   

So why do we teach?  Only if we have a well thought out answer to that question can we hope to foster truly transformative learning.  And the only answer that begins to be adequate is that we do it out of love.  I encouraged the Kenyan faculty actively to cultivate three passions: love of the Lord, love of their subject, and love of their students.  It is only when all three are present and intelligently integrated that transformative teaching can emerge.

Love of the Lord has to come first.  Unless it does, love of the subject will degenerate into intellectual pride and love of the students into corrupted sentimentality.  But love for the Lord comes first not for those reasons but because He is the Lord of Glory, the eternal Word of the God of Truth, and the sacrificial Savior of our souls.  We love Him not for pragmatic reasons but because He first loved us, and because He is simply worthy of that position in our lives.  If we cannot see that most basic of truths, what else could we possibly have to teach?  What else could we teach with any accuracy or integrity?  For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, hence of learning—hence of teaching.     

Love of the God of Truth leads to love of a particular area of truth, a subject for which we have been given aptitude and to which we have been called to devote ourselves.  We take deep pleasure not just in its facts but in its terminology, its methodology, its grammar or structure, its history, its lore, its practical application, as things worthy of contemplation and pursuit for their own sake and the sake of their Creator and of our fellow man.  Without this love deeply ingrained in our hearts we will never overcome the demands on our time of job and family to stay fresh in the material, keep it up to date, and impart it with enthusiasm.  We cannot impart what we do not have.  Therefore, without this love we will be able fully to impart neither learning nor the love of learning, being inevitably deficient ourselves in both.

Love of the Lord and of the subject may suffice to make one a good Christian scholar; and this is an excellent and rare thing, not to be despised.  It is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of fulfilling our calling.  Without the third love, though, we will never be good teachers.  We must love, not just students in the abstract, but our students, the very ornery, ill prepared, inattentive, lazy, and clueless people God has sent us (along with a few delights who are the opposite of all those more frequently encountered attributes).  How else shall we cut through their carefully cultivated ennui to reach them with the subject we love?  Where else shall we get the combination of earnest zeal and endless patience that it takes?  And why else would we expect them to listen?

If we have these three loves, we may be called to be teachers.  If we are to be effective teachers, we must not take their continuance for granted, but rather cultivate them daily.  Life has an almost infinite capacity to dull our hearts and minds, to bury us under trivial pursuits, to confuse us with the tyranny of the urgent, to wear us down by its daily grind.  “A man, Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “should keep his friendship in constant repair.”  It is good advice for those who would be friends of God, of learning, and of their students.

The love of God; the love of your subject; the love of your students: It is only when all three are powerfully present and intelligently integrated that transformative teaching can emerge.  May the God of Truth and of Love make it so in our lives, to the glory of His Son.  Amen.

The Adventure of Reading

Don July 27th, 2010

One of the unexpected opportunities that arose in my recent mission trip to Africa was the opportunity to speak in a couple of school assemblies.  There is a poster one sees in Kenya that proclaims, “Literacy for Improved Food Production!”  I don’t doubt that improved food production is a worthy goal and that literacy can help attain it, I told the students of St. Philip’s Secondary School in Kitale, Kenya. But there is so much more to reading than that!  Reading makes available to us three things that are much harder to access without it: the Word of God, the world of ideas, and the world of imagination.

 The Word of God, recorded in the Christian Bible, contains the personal revelation of the Creator of the Universe, including His wisdom, His commandments, His love, and His plan for the salvation and eternal fulfillment of His creatures.  The world of ideas gives us the cumulative experience and thinking of the human race as it follows or rebels against the Word of God in its history, its science, its philosophy.  If nothing more, it can keep us from spending our whole lives reinventing the wheel.  The world of imagination shows us the creative stirrings of the human spirit, stimulating our own spirits to make creative applications of what we learn from Scripture, history, and science.    

 Any of the three worlds to which reading gives us access—Scripture, Ideas, Imagination—can expand the mind in such a way as to facilitate things yet undreamt of (including better food production).  When we combine them together, their capacity to do so is increased exponentially.  So pursue the adventure of reading with all your might, both in school and out of it!  It was Newman’s Idea of a University recycled impromptu for an African context.  And I don’t think it’s a bad exhortation for American students either. 

Donald T. Williams, PhD

Prof. of English, Toccoa Falls College

Editor, The Lamp-Post

Web Site:  http://doulomen.tripod.com

Blog:  www.journalofformalpoetry.com

E-Mail:  dtw@tfc.edu

 “To think well is to serve God in the interior court.”

– Thomas Traherne

Africa Report 2010

Don July 14th, 2010

MISSION REPORT: AFRICA 2010

Once again this summer I had the privilege of ministering in Uganda and Kenya for Church Planting International and Christian life Teachings International (CLTI), the indigenous training ministry founded by Rev. John Robert Opio, one of the students on my first trip. I conducted a modular course in theology for two groups of rural pastors, one in Kitale, Kenya, and the other in Mbarara, Uganda. These are men in ministry who have had no opportunity to receive formal theological training. In these countries, the church is growing faster than it can train leaders. Since these men cannot go to Bible school, I take a little Bible school to them. With men of such zeal and dedication, a little goes a long way.

Thurs., 6/12-Sat. 6/14, 2010: Travel: Atlanta to Paris to Nairobi to Kitale, Kenya.

Sun., 6/20: AM, Preached at God’s Family Restoration Church, Kitale; PM, spoke to Kamukuya Pastor’s Fellowship, 21 pastors and elders representing seven village ministries from Pentecostal to Baptist.

Mon., 6/21-Thurs., 6/24: Modular course in Survey of Christian Doctrine taught to 34 pastors and church leaders.  For seven of them it was their last course with CLTI leading to a certificate in Christian ministry.

On the second day of the Kenya seminar, we covered the doctrine of the Trinity with special reference to Islam. Why do Muslims think Christians are polytheists? How can we get past that impasse? What does the doctrine of the Trinity actually affirm? Not that we simultaneously believe that there is one God and that there are three Gods–that would be a contradiction. Rather, there is one God who contains three Persons. This is merely incomprehensible, not contradictory. We went over a lot of Scripture that affirms as true the following propositions: there is only one God, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, and Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct persons, not just three different names for God. The doctrine of the Trinity is simply the only way to affirm the simultaneous truth of all these biblical statements.
There are four reasons to believe that the doctrine of the Trinity is true.  1.  The bible teaches it. 2.  Allah is just too simple. Any God I could understand without difficulty must by that fact be a false God.  3.  If God were a simple monotheistic deity like Allah, the incarnation would be impossible—for how should God abandon Heaven for existence as a Man and still rule the world?  Only a Trinitarian God could become incarnate without abdicating the throne of the universe.  Therefore, only the Trinity can save; Allah cannot.  4.  Only if the Trinity is the true account of God could the affirmation that “God is love” be meaningful. Before creation, there would be no one for Allah to love; but the Father, the Son, and the Spirit loved each other in the unity of the Godhead from all eternity, and now through faith in Christ invite us to share that love with them for all of future eternity. Now, that’s a God worth believing in!

In sum, the incomprehensibility of the Trinity is in the light of the above facts actually an asset to Christian faith, not a liability.  The Muslims cry, “Allah U’Akbar!”  “Allah is great!”  But we have already discovered two very important things that the God of the Bible can do and which Allah cannot do: save and love.  How great can Allah be?
There was a lot of intense attention to the apologetic points against Islam, because these people have Muslim neighbors. One man said, “I thought I was coming to a seminar, and I find myself in college!” Not quite–he doesn’t have to write a paper or read a systematic theology textbook (and a couple of C. S. Lewis books!) in addition to the biblical texts. But his unintentional hyperbole has a point–that is exactly what I was invited to bring these men.

Tues., 6/20: After the class ended for the day, spoke to an assembly of St. Philip’s Secondary School, Kitale, and then addressed the faculty separately after the students were dismissed.  I spoke to the students on the adventure of reading.  There is a poster one sees in Kenya that proclaims, “Literacy for Improved Food Production!”  I don’t doubt that improved food production is a worthy goal and that literacy can help attain it, I said; but there is so much more to reading than that!  It makes available to us the Word of God, the world of ideas, and the world of imagination—all of which can expand the mind in such a way as to facilitate things yet undreamt of (including better food production).  It was Newman’s Idea of a University recycled impromptu for an African context.  I encouraged the faculty to actively cultivate two things: love of their subject and love of their students.  It is only when both are present that transformative teaching can emerge.

Fri., 6/25: CLTI Graduation.  We had a graduation ceremony for seven students who had completed the whole pastoral training course from Christian Life Teachings International. After the service and before the recessional, an African graduate’s family and friends will come up and drop garlands of tinsel over their mortar-boarded heads, so that during the photo session afterwards (which puts most weddings to shame) they look like walking Christmas trees with black trunks (the bottoms of their robes still showing beneath). During the next American graduation I have to endure, I will be sure to remember that it could be worse!
The Valedictorian, Peter Sisunga, included in his speech–really a fiery sermon–some things he learned from me two years ago. That made me think maybe I’m not wasting my time here after all! Some of my American students have difficulty remembering things I said two weeks–er, sometimes two days—ago.
Sat., 6/26: Travel to Mukono, Uganda.

Sun., 6/27: Preach at Campus Church of Uganda Christian University.  The visit to Uganda Christian University in Mukono (Evangelical Anglican) was a great success. My sermons to campus church congregations of about 1,000 (first service) and 200 (second) were very well received. The Rev. Canon Frederick Baalwa, the campus chaplain, was astonished that I had actually presented the text and topic he had asked for (“The Place of Authority in Christian Leadership,” Mark 10:42-5). “That was powerful,” he said. Christian leadership is the theme for this term. When I saw the whole programme I was impressed with how he had broken it down. Perhaps the best thing that came of our short time there was making a connection between Rev. Baalwa and Rev. Opio. Baalwa was quite taken with the vision and ministry of CLTI and said that there were many rural Anglican (Church of Uganda) congregations led by lay preachers who desperately needed just what John Opio is doing. They soon had their heads together plotting blessings for the Kingdom–a wonderful ecumenical moment. Baalwa was astounded that I, a Muzungu (white man), was taking Public Transport to Mbarara. “You really practice the servant leadership you preach!” he marveled. Apparently Muzungus on public are a great rarity. There is a reason why.

If God has put anything in the world to remind us of human weakness, it must be the African public transportation system. The journey from Kampala to Mbarara Sunday afternoon–about 280 kilometers to the West–took a full eight hours of being bumped and pounded half to death. But I survived to begin the second week of classes

Mon., 6/28-Weds., 6/30: Second Modular Theology Course, at Mbarara, Uganda.  I used the same material as in Kenya but covered less of it because many of the men (and women leaders too) are even less prepared academically than the CLTI students I had in Kenya. Sometimes here it takes a while just to explain something to the interpreter so he can render it. In Kenya, half of the students were confident enough in English to ask their questions in English. Here, almost no one is. So the interpreters are even more essential, but they too are less prepared. Nevertheless, we are accomplishing some good teaching.  The Trinity explained as a positive response to Islam rather than a theological liability was a hit here too.

One encouraging factor in Mbarara was that several of these students had already seen through the Prosperity Gospel on their own–unusual in Africa. They were asking for effective ways to combat it. Apparently “Name it and claim it” translates into Lyancole as “Take it! Take it!” So I said, just ask people to read the Gospels and ask them whether they are seeing a Jesus who says “Take it!” or one whose message is “Give it!” Was Paul in perfect health right after being stoned and left for dead? Where was his faith? Was Jesus lacking in faith because He had no place to lay his head? This theology is not just wrong, it is blasphemous! What of the Missionaries who first brought the Gospel to Uganda? They packed in their coffins because they expected to die from Malaria–yet they came anyway. Aren’t we glad their preachers weren’t saying, “Take it! Take it!”  Makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?

Thurs., 7/1: Preached to midweek service of Ruti Reformed Presbyterian Church in Mbarara and addressed an assembly of Hillside Primary School in nearby Biharwe.

Fri.-Sat., 7/2-3: Journey home via Kampala, Entebbe, Amsterdam, Paris, and Atlanta.

Summary: Preached in five services at four churches, spoke to two Pastor’s Fellowships and two school assemblies, held two training seminars for about seventy pastors and church leaders, and spoke at one graduation service in two weeks of intense ministry.  Pray that the men who attended the seminars will commit what they heard to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. That way, the church will be strengthened and the mission will have been a success.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

Lewis and Linearity

Don June 16th, 2010

I have an acquaintance who has been marveling over the fact that she knows people who just can’t seem to get into C. S. Lewis’s classic Mere Christianity.  That wouldn’t be so astonishing in itself.  But they complain that this masterpiece of winsomeness and clarity is wordy and confusing!  What can be going on here?

I can empathize with this lady’s mystification at her friends’ inability to follow Lewis, but I have run into the phenomenon too many times to be surprised by it any more.  Because some of the people whom I’ve encountered with this disability have been my students, I have had an opportunity to study the syndrome up close in some detail.  It is not due to any lack of clarity or failure to be engaging on Lewis’s part.  The real culprit for many postmodern readers is their inability to follow a linear argument–any linear argument.  Often in Lewis, in other words, the ability to “get” the paragraph you are in depends on your having gotten the one that preceded it.  Many people today have such short attention spans that they can only deal with soundbytes and get frustrated by anyone who expects them to put two and two together to arrive at four, however plainly he maps out the path for them.  Or, worse, they have actually been taught to be suspicious of discursive Reason as something that has nothing to do with reality and which can only lead them astray.

Lewis’s linearity is a virtue, not a fault, and I stoutly maintain that we should not respond to the abysmal failure of our educational system to teach critical thinking (or even foster the conditions that make it possible) by dumbing down the Faith (or its most winsome representative).  That would be to falsify and misrepresent it, and therefore to lose the very reason why we should be caring whether people can follow it in the first place.  For some (if they have the patience for it, or an ornery professor who won’t let them out of it), Lewis can be a bridge out of the soundbyte solipsism they naturally inhabit into the larger world of rationality.  For some; not all.  That even Lewis cannot reach many is the greatest indictment of our so-called education system I can think of.  Remember that Mere Christianity was written for uneducated British laymen of the 1940’s.  They got it because they had not had their ability to think destroyed like “educated” modern Americans have.

It’s all in Lewis!  It’s all in Lewis!  What DO they teach them in those schools?

From Mr. Tumnus’ Library,

Don

Donald T. Williams, PhD
Prof. of English, Toccoa Falls College
Editor, The Lamp-Post
Web Site:  http://doulomen.tripod.com
Blog:  www.journalofformalpoetry.com
E-Mail:  dtw@tfc.edu

P.S.  I leave for Africa tomorrow.  Your prayers for the mission would be appreciated. — DW

I’m Back

Don November 6th, 2009

“Well, I’m back,” as Sam said to Rosie at the end of The Lord of the Rings.  After a week lecturing for Summit Ministries at Snow Wolf Lodge near Pagosa Springs, Colorado (see “The Queen and her Handmaids,” Oct. 12), I got back to a week of undone work and Pre-Registration week with its academic advising frenzy for Spring semester, as well as the last two weeks of frantic preparation for Shakespeare’s “Much Ado about Nothing,” being put on by the Toccoa Falls College Drama Club.  I’m the faculty adviser to the Drama Club as well as being Father Francis in the play.  So I haven’t had a moment for blogging.  Until now.  So here are a couple of miscellaneous thoughts to get started again.

 Summit Ministries is a great organization.  Their students are the most intelligent, prepared, and receptive, and their staff the most sharp and focused in their application of Scripture to the issues of the day, that I ever meet.  If you ever have a chance to attend–or send your young people to–one of their two-week Christian Worldview camps, do it.    Google them and you will see what I mean.

I do not have time to be in a play.  So why am I doing it this semester (other than general insanity)?  It’s Shakepeare!  ‘Nuff said.  But it’s also a chance to spend time with students outside of class.  You get to bond with some of the best in new ways, which is worthwhile in itself.  But that bonding that takes place outside of class is a powerfully transformative factor in the students’ ability to receive what you want to give them inside of class.  Many faculty members do not sufficiently appreciate this fact.  I come to appreciate it more with each passing year.

Donald T. Williams, Phd