The following satire, so pertinent for our time is reprinted by permission from THE REFORMED RECORD (Oct. 1972), official monthly publication of The League of Christian Laymen (R.G.A.), Inc.
Having been involved in the process of education for many years, both on this side and the European side of the Atlantic, I am struck by certain things in the process as being very strange.
The first blow was that the teachers and professors actually had the pride to claim they knew more about their subject than the student. They never once asked the student to teach them or the class, unless they had carefully prepared them to do so. Now, this is certainly not a very democratic way to run a school or a doctoral program. The teachers or professors should admit they are no better than the student, and hand in hand go tremulously in search for light in the darkness. One may never leave the dark maze, but it’s the search that counts. It’s time teachers and professors learn not to think of themselves more highly than they ought to think.
Not only did they fail this test of good educational methodology—they actually require their students to read works of men long dead. It was tragic the way they rejected the NOW! The reason they gave is to be rejected out of hand. They had the temerity to claim that such study would protect us from committing the Theological faux pas of the past. Such educators have no feel for the doctrine we all hold: “There is joy in recapitulation.” It is not important to know that Nietzsche said “God is dead” long before Altizer and Robinson did. If “now” men write it, it must be taken seriously, so why know the past?
The third blow flows from the second. The student was required to read critically. Could it be that Barth, Brunner, Tillich, et al., were wrong? Of course not. “Now” men are never wrong. If they disagree with one another, this does not prove one is right and the other wrong. It only shows they have a problem (probably due to a glandular imbalance), and, anyway, that’s their business, not the students’. (Oh, how I wish I knew what those men were talking about!)
To have to listen to lectures and read books written by those who claim to know more than their students in a given area is odious (what might that word mean?), and then to have to be critical—why that’s simply impossible. What right have such teachers and professors to try to fill my head with knowledge. Socrates proved it already is (did I really say Socrates?). If they consider me ignorant, then I say to you, teacher or professor—let’s pool our ignorance, for only so shall we find wisdom.
When the student 6nally goes and takes a call to a church, he finds some more of these hard heads. In his own congregation, even! Some ministers still want to consider theological truth (or even the Bible) important. Hideous! Don’t they realize that the Holy Spirit leads us all the way without propositional (I think that’s the word) truth? The old idea of the Spirit working through the Bible (Word) is dead. They must realize that we are searching for God and the search is all important.
Let’s get into a circle and hold hands or hug one another. More is revealed this way than through study of the Bible (yeah!).
The writer trusts that the reader will forgive the above satire. The reason for it rests upon two deep personal concerns.
First – in the area of education there is a growing lack of learning by any other method than experience. This means we are doomed to recapitulate the sins of the past.
Second – this same stress upon experience in our church has led to a despising of Biblical truth and a separation of the Word from the Spirit. This uncritical acceptance of a psychological method has led us smack-dab into the heresy of Montanism.* We are doomed to repeat the sins of the past.
Conclusion: Please, Almighty God, awaken our sluggish, lazy minds so that we may begin to realize how close we are to the brink! Amen.
*Montanism – The 1st century heresy that confessed: “Jesus is Lord.” This was the only confession required. In place of content they put the leading of the Holy Spirit. This movement degenerated because of the consequent lack of agreement upon truth. A sure fire method of not finding truth.
William P. Van Malsen is the pastor of the Fourth Reformed Church of Holland, Michigan.
Having been involved in the process of education for many years, both on this side and the European side of the Atlantic, I am struck by certain things in the process as being very strange.
The first blow was that the teachers and professors actually had the pride to claim they knew more about their subject than the student. They never once asked the student to teach them or the class, unless they had carefully prepared them to do so. Now, this is certainly not a very democratic way to run a school or a doctoral program. The teachers or professors should admit they are no better than the student, and hand in hand go tremulously in search for light in the darkness. One may never leave the dark maze, but it’s the search that counts. It’s time teachers and professors learn not to think of themselves more highly than they ought to think.
Not only did they fail this test of good educational methodology—they actually require their students to read works of men long dead. It was tragic the way they rejected the NOW! The reason they gave is to be rejected out of hand. They had the temerity to claim that such study would protect us from committing the Theological faux pas of the past. Such educators have no feel for the doctrine we all hold: “There is joy in recapitulation.” It is not important to know that Nietzsche said “God is dead” long before Altizer and Robinson did. If “now” men write it, it must be taken seriously, so why know the past?
The third blow flows from the second. The student was required to read critically. Could it be that Barth, Brunner, Tillich, et al., were wrong? Of course not. “Now” men are never wrong. If they disagree with one another, this does not prove one is right and the other wrong. It only shows they have a problem (probably due to a glandular imbalance), and, anyway, that’s their business, not the students’. (Oh, how I wish I knew what those men were talking about!)
To have to listen to lectures and read books written by those who claim to know more than their students in a given area is odious (what might that word mean?), and then to have to be critical—why that’s simply impossible. What right have such teachers and professors to try to fill my head with knowledge. Socrates proved it already is (did I really say Socrates?). If they consider me ignorant, then I say to you, teacher or professor—let’s pool our ignorance, for only so shall we find wisdom.
When the student 6nally goes and takes a call to a church, he finds some more of these hard heads. In his own congregation, even! Some ministers still want to consider theological truth (or even the Bible) important. Hideous! Don’t they realize that the Holy Spirit leads us all the way without propositional (I think that’s the word) truth? The old idea of the Spirit working through the Bible (Word) is dead. They must realize that we are searching for God and the search is all important.
Let’s get into a circle and hold hands or hug one another. More is revealed this way than through study of the Bible (yeah!).
The writer trusts that the reader will forgive the above satire. The reason for it rests upon two deep personal concerns.
First – in the area of education there is a growing lack of learning by any other method than experience. This means we are doomed to recapitulate the sins of the past.
Second – this same stress upon experience in our church has led to a despising of Biblical truth and a separation of the Word from the Spirit. This uncritical acceptance of a psychological method has led us smack-dab into the heresy of Montanism.* We are doomed to repeat the sins of the past.
Conclusion: Please, Almighty God, awaken our sluggish, lazy minds so that we may begin to realize how close we are to the brink! Amen.
*Montanism – The 1st century heresy that confessed: “Jesus is Lord.” This was the only confession required. In place of content they put the leading of the Holy Spirit. This movement degenerated because of the consequent lack of agreement upon truth. A sure fire method of not finding truth.
William P. Van Malsen is the pastor of the Fourth Reformed Church of Holland, Michigan.