My ministry must consider how the educational programming I will create in my context can bring forth Kingdom. I believe that Kingdom must encompass justice and equality for all peoples, which necessitates critical analysis of social location and ways of learning that can unpack our embedded theologies and presumptions about society and the world. Understanding how we operate in the complex, often discriminatory structures of our world, can help us to see how structures of oppression (that may not be superficially apparent as such) inhibit Kingdom. Understanding my context as well as my community’s wider context helps me to discover the particular starting places for my critical treatment of the ways we exist in the world and the work necessary to build Kingdom.
It is common for Christian understandings of Kingdom to take on an “otherworldly” manner and for Christians to see their relationship to Kingdom as individualistic and salvation-oriented (1). This popular understanding of Kingdom leads to practice that is self-centered and neglects Jesus’ ministry in favor of a high Christology that promotes individual salvation by “belief.” As might be expected, faith that focuses on “believing” may lack real applicability to the world and result in practice that favors inner work over addressing the very real concerns of the world– concerns that we can see were important to Jesus by virtue of how he performed his ministry: by ministering to the poor, the sick, and the outcast and inviting them to full participation in the life of God (2). In creating clear ways of understanding Kingdom, we can bring its meaning back into alignment with Jesus’ ministry.
Thematically, Kingdom was important to Jesus and our gospel writers. Its prevalence requires us to meditate on what it means for our communities. Fleshing out the meaning and importance of Kingdom can set a foundation from which to build justice work. If our churches can begin to develop meaningful visions of Kingdom, those understandings will rise to the forefront in our treatment of scripture and become part of our explicit curriculum (3). It became important to me to understand more specifically what Kingdom meant to me and how I want to present Kingdom in my ministry contexts. I would articulate Kingdom as the “radically and thoroughly historical” arrival of peace and justice the world, heralded by Jesus, co-created by God and humanity (4). Kingdom is in process and will fully arrive when humanity truly realizes its inherent interrelatedness with all of life and lives that truth. If I can bring this lens to scripture, I hope that my ministry will elevate the importance of engaging our faith in the world to bring about the reign of peace.
This work will look different as members decide how their hands and feet can best serve this purpose. It is important, however, that the work be rooted in love. Jesus’ ministry conveys love and radical acceptance that we are called to emulate. Furthermore, a word often translated as “knowledge” or “knowing” in the Bible is, in the Hebrew, yada, which is also often referring to an intimate love. If we bring this idea forward, we we study our scriptures, we can see that we are called to act in love. Furthermore, as a community, we must discover what that knowing/love must look like in our lives. It will be important for me and my faith community (which currently consists of primarily white, middle class individuals) to analyze our ways of being in the world and ask what our love needs to look like (5).
If Kingdom is rooted in peace and justice, it is important to work toward a world in which people are given equal opportunities and avenues for support and care. In asking how to do this, addressing our own social location will be very important. I imagine discussions in which my community explores who we are in the world and how we can best serve. These discussions will need to be in an environment that respects differences and is open to and welcoming of a variety of voices. This will require careful thinking on ways that “narrow boundaries have shaped the way knowledge is shared,” especially since we come from generally privileged positions (6). I must remain mindful of what my presence will bring to these discussions as a white, middle class, cisgendered woman (7). It will be important to be critical of and open about the systems that position me (and us) in situations of opportunity and oppression in order to understand how such systems inhibit or produce Kingdom, as well as how we can act within them or resist them in the work of Kingdom.
Also important in working toward are more equal and inclusive world is confronting the ways that our perceived multiculturalism is often ill-conceived, however well-intentioned. This is especially important in my community of mostly white and middle class people who generally operate from the dominant perspective. Four common misunderstandings will require frequent consideration: inclusion, encounter, hierarchy, and naivety (8). Confronting my privilege will be important in considering how I can be a voice in bringing forth equality without presupposing opportunities based on said privilege or dominating conversations in which “my” voice has historically been heard. Working toward equality and peace cannot be naively perceived as a Candyland-like future absent of struggle. As history should tell us, progress is difficult and a multicultural reality is not achieved by the inclusion of a multiplicity of people. While representation and diversity are important, this cannot be done as a way that minorities integrate into the normative center. This fails to be truly multicultural and instead asks for conformity while continuing to privilege dominant paradigms and voices. This will be important to draw to the surface so that folks do not misinterpret our levels of progress. Including marginalized voices does not alone bring about equal participation and consideration, nor does it dismantle hierarchic systems of valuing. Such hierarchies are often implicit and unacknowledged, even in situations in which we intend to acknowledge and celebrate diversity. Furthermore, in exploring the diversities that exist among us, our interactions cannot be “cultural tourism.” Well-intentioned folks often engage in education and experience in ways that fail to fully acknowledge the humanity and integrity of the peoples they encounter. For instance: it would be important for us to avoid attending a worship service in a black church in such a way that our interaction treats a community like subjects in a museum. This kind of interaction would expand the education and opportunity (although superficially) of my community (more generally privileged) while offering nothing to the “subject” of the interaction, who is often objectified in this process. Programming and conversations must bring these misconceptions to the forefront, so that we do not make these mistakes or operate in ways that further reinforce privilege and oppress authentic multicultural expression. While I intend to set these issues up as important to consideration of how a community can best discover ways of pursuing Kingdom, I believe the conversation must be organic and incorporate lessons from bell hooks and Jane Vella in how to construct opportunities for learning and dialogue that are open, welcoming, and safe for all.
I hope that discussions like these will serve to help the communities I will minister in the future to discover how to best continue these educational discussions alongside projects that integrate lessons learned into concrete action for Kingdom-building. As Maria Harris suggests, Christian faith can no longer be about memorization and religious laws (9). Faith seems to devolve into moral elitism when it becomes about “believing right.” It is important that reflections of our theologies manifest in multiple ways (10).
I started to consider the ways that my home community is very good at articulating an explicit curriculum, but wonder what we suggested implicitly or what was null. The space likely speaks as “traditional” by virtue of its pews, organ, stained glass, and hymnals. However, our stained glass is trees (as opposed to biblical figures), we do not have a lecturn (it was removed because of the hierarchy it implied), and aside from the Bibles in the pews, there is no symbolic elevation of Christian scripture in our sanctuary (although there is a large wooden cross on one side of the chancel). This communicates, to me, a tension between tradition and newer ways of experiencing worship that are probably true to our worship stylings. While I’m happy to say that our sanctuary was redesigned in recent years so that wheelchair access is available to the chancel and wheelchairs can enter the sanctuary through the main doors (as opposed to a side door, which was previously necessary), in our current sanctuary set up, there is little else suggestive of our “Open and Affirming” status beyond what is explicitly printed in bulletins (although sometimes banners are hung with, for instance, hands of many colors or a quote from a POC). It would be nice to see something more consistently suggestive of our efforts, like a Pride flag. Our church is currently commissioning a mural of the Virgen de Guadalupe, which I believe is progress toward these ends. I am grateful for the ways that Harris pointed out what we say with our space. This will be important to me going forward as I advocate for things like our mural and other ways to speak with our space.
Critical analysis of our contexts are important to building Kingdom, as we co-discover the ways that our systems advantage and disadvantage people and address ways to dismantle or reform systems that serve to divide and oppress. I must consider not only the ways that my community and I are explicit in our work toward Kingdom, but what we communicate implicitly or fail to communicate at all. I am asked to continually examine my context and the ways that I communicate it and my goals.
(1) Thomas H. Groome, Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 35.
(2) Groome suggests that this conflation of “faith” and “belief” stems from Post-Enlightenment ways of thinking, which is primarily concerned with “facts.” Ibid, 57-60.
(3) Maria Harris, Fashion Me a People: Curriculum in the Church (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), 68.
(4) Groome, Christian Religious Education, 44-45.
(5) Ibid, 141.
(6) bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994), 44.
(7) Ibid, 135.
(8) Class session March 17, 2015: Critical Religious Pedagogy: A Christian Perspective taught by Rev. Dr. Boyung Lee
(9) Ibid, 45-46.
(10) Harris discusses this in terms of “explicit curriculum,” “implicit curriculum,” and “null curriculum.”
Bibliography
1. Groome, Thomas H. Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.
2. Harris, Maria. Fashion Me a People: Curriculum in the Church. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1989.
3. bell hooks. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994.
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