Levellers

Sunday School is no longer popular with many churches.  This is not necessarily bad. Sunday School was invented in the 19th C. and is hardly a biblical mandate.  But I am concerned that with the loss of Sunday School, most churches are also losing biblical literacy as well as the skills of mutual discernment cultivated by group Bible study.  Studying in groups helps the entire group cultivate skills of exegesis, theological and ethical reflection. It also helps the group bond in ways of mutual support and accountability–practises which spill over to the wider church community.

I particularly enjoy the adult Sunday School class at my church because it has an added dimension: Nowhere else have I studied Scripture regularly with such a diverse group of people.  Some of us are highly educated: I have a Ph.D. in theological ethics with minor concentrations in philosophy of religion and in New Testament. Among those regularly in the class are several seminary graduates (not all the same seminary, either) including one with a Master of Social Work and a Ph.D. in sociology who teaches social work and social theory at a nearby university; one with an M.A. in History who combines work as a youth minister with teaching Middle School social studies; one who works as a church-based community organizer.  Another classmate is a current seminary student planning a Ph.D. in New Testament studies with a concentration on the Pauline writings. Yet another has no seminary training but spent time as a young man in the Jesuit Volunteer Service (the token Protestant for that year, he often jokes) and has an M.A. in philosophy and an M.Sc. in engineering–and works on engineering for renewable, non-polluting energy sources.  Moving in and out of this core group, we are infrequently joined by a medical student and her sports and service oriented fiance husband, another schoolteacher, 2-3 social workers, a visiting missionary to Morocco, a law professor and others.  A highly educated group, no?

 But that’s only half the class:  the rest is filled by high school graduates and high school dropouts, some homeless; up until recently, one of our most dedicated classmates was a brilliant, but largely self-educated man who is a self-described “mental health consumer,”–previously in a state-run institution, he obsesses over tiny details and his brilliance is often combined with either a childlike naivete or a paranoia.[Note: These are amateur observations/descriptions and by no means attempts at diagnosis.  I am out of my league there and well aware of it.] This part of the class includes a young, very passionate,  musician deeply concerned with peace & justice, but with a deep penchant for interpreting biblical texts through a comparative religions mysticism, a la’ Frazier’s, Golden Boughwith a few updates from Cambell’s views on mythology.

The class is not only educationally diverse, but economically, and sometimes racially diverse. (Alas! Despite heavy recruiting, we have few women as class members and far too often we are male only.)  We also have different religious backgrounds:  most have come from very conservative evangelical upbringings, but not all.  Some of those with such backgrounds are in full rebellion against them, too. We approach weekly Bible study with different views of what the Bible IS, what kind of authority it has, as well as bringing very diverse perspectives to the texts.

We rotate the leadership of the class. We do not have one active teacher and a bunch of passive listeners. Each week one is prepared to lead, but most study ahead of time (we have no pre-packaged literature, but share commentaries and other resources–and those of us who have some skill in biblical languages sometimes prepare translations for the class) and all come to the class ready to ask questions of texts and each other–challenging questions.  Often there is no consensus.

Does this sound like chaos? Impossible? A recipe for anarchy? Maybe, but it is the most exciting weekly Bible Study to which I have ever belonged. I come away each week believing the class to have been of value–and usually I would say that I heard the voice of God in the text or in the voices of my fellow classmates–or both. And EVERYONE in the class, including the amateurs and those with less education have regularly contributed important insights–something that must seem strange to those who consider Bible study best left to “experts” and that everyone else should be labeled “dilettantes.”

I am convinced that this is how regular Bible study should be conducted. There are roles for those with technical knowlege. But there are also insights from those who may have no technical knowledge but much spiritual maturity. There are the insights that come from being poor or marginalized–those most similar to the ones Jesus spent most of his time among. There is cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural insight. There are skeptics to raise the hard questions–and strangers to the community to ask the unexpected questions.  There is no patience with the pre-packaged pablum of most “adult Bible study” materials which are still written for 11 year olds and in which the teacher is to make sure the class gets the “main theme” of the “lesson.” Instead, there is hard questioning of the text, of each other, and sometimes of God. I don’t always get away unscathed. But, like Jacob wrestling the stranger at Jabbok (Gen. 32:22-32), when I walk away wounded, I am also blessed.  Thanks be to God.