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Hymns Ancient & Modern - Mark Chater

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109 pages

English

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The Christian presence in education has never been more controversial. While some secularists oppose any form of religious involvement in schools or universities, some Christians also wonder why the churches are there. Conflicting narratives surround the purpose of Christian involvement in education. Yet at the heart of Christianity stands an educator, whose passion and resurrection can be understood afresh as learning.
But what does it mean to say that Jesus was a teacher? If he was a good teacher, was he also a learner? Is today’s Christian church learning? Can educators help the church to recover a ‘learning Christ’ who places learning at the heart of the Godhead and the church? How could the Christian churches take the educational significance of Jesus more seriously?
Christian teachers often find themselves divided between a professional discourse on learning and making progress, and a theological vocabulary which they do not fully own, connecting only sporadically with their professional identity. This book helps educators to treat their teacher identity as a theological resource, rather than an obstacle, and in so doing to discover new insights on Christ which can be of relevance to the wider church and its mission.

Sujets

Religion

Christianisme

Christian Education

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Hymns Ancient & Modern
Date de parution	30 octobre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780334059707
Langue	English

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Jesus Christ, Learning Teacher
Jesus the teacher is so often misunderstood, and we in the churches have to take our share of responsibility for that. Congratulations to Mark for a wonderful new look at Jesus through educational eyes. Jesus Christ, Learning Teacher asks questions about how Jesus the teacher is presented to us in the text of the Gospels, and in the imagination and teaching of the contemporary churches. Bad theology costs lives. But in this book we have good, life-giving theology, good surprises about Jesus, and practical ways forward for the churches.
The Revd Steve Chalke MBE, Founder and Leader, Oasis Global
An outstanding book, one that needed to be written. It has a strong foundation in scholarship and professional experience. Mark’s argument that the church needs to take the educational Christ more seriously in its educational and pastoral work is topical and compelling.
Fr Richard Peers, Sub-Dean, Christ Church Oxford
The quality of writing is beautifully clear. The range of scholarship is impressive. It reveals and shares lifelong personal reflection, intimate with text and interpreters in the life of the church. It will speak to fellow Christians, especially those with links to formal education. Jesus, the real and learning teacher, comes clearly through the author’s experience and reflection. The book is complete as it stands, and it builds symphonically.
Brian Gates MBE, Emeritus Professor of Religion, Ethics and Education, University of Cumbria

Jesus Christ, Learning Teacher
Where Theology and Pedagogy Meet
Mark Chater

© Mark Chater 2020
Published in 2020 by SCM Press
Editorial office
3rd Floor, Invicta House,
108–114 Golden Lane,
London EC1Y 0TG, UK
www.scmpress.co.uk
SCM Press is an imprint of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd (a registered charity)

Hymns Ancient & Modern® is a registered trademark of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd
13A Hellesdon Park Road, Norwich,
Norfolk NR6 5DR, UK
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of
the publisher, SCM Press.
The author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
Biblical quotations are from The Jerusalem Bible, published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. and used by permission.
978-0-334-05968-4
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd

Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword by David F. Ford
Introduction: Jesus Christ, learning teacher – is that even possible?
Part 1 First born
1. A teacher looks at Jesus: Baggage and biography
2. A teacher looks at the church: Hermeneutics and education
3. The dance of theology and pedagogy
4. Getting to know him
Part 2 Learning teacher
5. The other side of you: The risen Christ as trickster teacher
6. Go and learn the meaning of the words: The roots and formation of a teacher
7. You have heard it said: A teacher of hermeneutics
8. Destroy this temple: The significance of location in Jesus’ teaching
9. The lesson that fails: Was Matthew’s Jesus a good teacher?
10. How shall we picture the kingdom? Reflections on a critical incident
11. Now at last you are speaking clearly: John’s Jesus as a teacher of light
Part 3 How our hearts burned within us
12. Writing an educational Christ
13. Teaching as sacrament of salvation
14. Towards an educational economy of the Trinity and the church

Postscript and proposals: Where pedagogy and theology meet

This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor John Hull, 1935–2015, wise teacher, generous mentor, compassionate friend

Acknowledgements
This book has been with me on a long road, having started as a set of questions I was asking myself in mid-career about the relationship between the vocations of Christian educator and theologian. Many kind friends and colleagues have encouraged me along the way: their advice and their belief in the importance of this idea have sustained me. They include Tanya Ap Sion, Lat Blaylock, Bob Bowie, Alan Brine, Violet Brown, Steve Chalke, Philip Esler, Paul Fiddes, David Ford, Brian Gates, Beth Green, Gregory Hadley, Claire Henderson Davis, David Heywood, Danielle Lynch, Jürgen Moltmann, Fiona Moss, Richard Peers, Ros Stuart-Buttle, John Sullivan and Andrew Wright.
A note on the text
The biblical references are from the Jerusalem Bible, unless otherwise stated. God has no pronouns. The church is generic, unless a specific tradition, church or denomination is named.

Foreword
It is quite obvious really: of course Jesus learned to speak, to read, to pray, and so on, and Luke’s Gospel gives a picture of him as a boy in the sort of intensive conversation ideal for learning. Of course Mary his mother was vital for his development. And of course he went on learning throughout his life. He has also been one of the most influential teachers ever. So how is he to be understood as a learning teacher?
One of the delights of this book is that it assumes there can be many worthwhile answers to that question, that there is no end to the inquiry, and that the reader is not being asked to agree with all the conclusions. Rather, the reader is being invited to explore a fascinating and important topic as the author leads by example. Mark Chater is both an experienced teacher and a well-educated and thoughtful theologian, and he has a deep desire for learning, for teaching, for truth, and for God. His writing above all seeks to arouse and intensify that desire in others. He does this with an attractive combination of modest, reflective autobiography going back to childhood, opening up something of his own spiritual and intellectual journey, together with a distillation of the educational and theological wisdom that he has gathered along the way.
Above all, his approach is imaginative, offering a vivid picture of Jesus as learner and teacher, and improvising on the Bible in order to bring home Jesus’ immense contemporary relevance. I especially appreciated his fictional, pointed updating of the teaching of Jesus. Through all his daring interpretations of the Gospels there is also a surefootedness in his use of biblical scholarship. And I love the lasagne image: that the tradition has many layers, from the earliest testimonies to Jesus right down to today, and each of them has nourishing meat.
Of recent teachers in the tradition, the one who stands out is Chater’s own teacher, the late John Hull, to whom the book is dedicated. I knew John well in Birmingham, where we were both members of a monthly theological and philosophical discussion group, during the years in which he was slowly going blind. It is very good indeed to savour in Mark Chater’s work something of the taste of John Hull’s provocative wisdom.
This book will be a gift to anyone involved in teaching about Jesus in any setting, but also, more than that, to anyone open to encountering Jesus afresh or for the first time.
David F. Ford
Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus
University of Cambridge

Introduction: Jesus Christ, learning teacher – is that even possible?
Is Jesus Christ, the fully divine and fully human God-man of Christian teaching, believable? In his life, was he a real human being who learned as he lived? As a teacher, did he learn and grow, as all good teachers do? Or was he parachuted in with a predetermined mission? As a teacher and saviour, is he effective and accessible for us?
These questions matter to ordinary people inside the churches. In quite different ways, the questions are also live ones for those hanging on to Christianity by their eyelids, those who have left it, and those who have never belonged. For their sake, the questions should matter to Christian teachers and others in Christian ministry, and those who train or supervise them.
Churches have real difficulty in communicating to these groups, and close to the heart of the problem is the challenge of blending or combining Christ’s divinity and his humanity. We have often assumed that a divine teacher, coming to earth, knows everything, needs to learn nothing, and in effect only appears to be human. Or we have tilted the other way and assumed that Christ’s incarnation into humanity means that he sets aside his divinity in order to become like us. Both these positions, in the history of the church, are classed as heresies – a harsh word for the belief-choices that fail to capture the full complexity of the tradition. Adult lay Christians can struggle to articulate the tensions of this complexity, let alone resolve them. They inhabit a church where the awkward, creative tensions in theology, embedded in the Bible and tradition, are too seldom explored, so that problems lie neglected, gathering power in the darkness.
It is rare for qualified theologians to break into that darkness. One of them who did, Elizabeth Templeton, warned of an ‘unhelpful collusion’ between clergy who avoid airing difficult issues in their preaching – ‘I mustn’t disturb my people’ – and laity who feel that their thoughts and questions lack legitimacy or decency – ‘I can’t say this out loud to the minister/priest’. 1 The