During the summer of 1992 I completed my dissertation for my Doctor of Ministry degree from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City Missouri. Since I was serving as a Christian educator at the time the focus of my writing was on curriculum-based congruency in religious education. On pages 61- 65 I wrote that religious education has three tasks:
1.
Theological task (tough minds)- a developing
belief system
2.
Evangelistic task (tender hearts)- community
with Christ and fellow Christ-followers
3.
Missional task (trained hands)- faithful
obedience in ministry and mission
I continued, “These tasks must be
kept in balance so that the religious education venture will have the potential
to affect the total being of each person engaged in religious education.” Then
I went on to describe each task in more detail. My initial reference footnote
for this section states, “The tough mind, tender heart, and trained hands
formula was devised by Walter Shurden, source unknown. The task formula was
devised by this author.”
Dr. Walter Shurden is a Baptist
theologian who has taught primarily at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in
Louisville, Kentucky and at Mercer University and its affiliate McAfee School
of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia. Through the years I sometimes wondered what
was the source of his “formula”, and I have never found it. However, I did find
Shurden’s :”formula” described in much detail as a basis for theological
education. This was contained in his convocation address to the McAfee School of
Theology on August 24, 1999. Thus, if I had first read Shurden about or within
three years of my presentation of my doctoral dissertation to the Midwestern
faculty then Shurden had perhaps a decade to develop his “formula.”
Reading Shurden’s convocation
address showed several dissentions between us. He begins with “tender hearts’
and I begin with “tough minds.” Yet I think we both believe all three should be
kept in balance as I stated in my dissertation. Our minor disagreement on this
point is perhaps due to our God-given differences of personalities. Another
dissention is our terminology. Shurden calls “tough minds” a matter of
intellect and reserves the term theological to label the entire process.
He also calls “tender hearts” a matter of piety. I see no essential division
between us on “tough minds” but with “tender hearts”” I focus on community- a
person in community with Jesus Christ and then persons banded together in
communion with Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 8:2 I believe it is more accurate
that the Apostle Paul writes of believers being a new creation rather
than being new creatures as that our salvation is personal it is never
individualistic.
I agree with Shurden that Christians
need “hands made skill by practice” both in theological education and daily church
life to reach out to those folks suffering in a broken world. Where we differ
is the centrality we give this aspect of our spiritual formation.
Shurden in his address favorably views
Glenn Hinson’s comments that if the campus of Southern Seminary could be rebuilt the chapel
and not the library should be the campus center. I disagree with Hinson and
Shurden at the point. Both the chapel and the library should be in the center
with one addition.
Enter Caleb Williams’ the freshman superstar
quarterback of the Oklahoma Sooners football team. Williams is a graduate of Gonzaga
College High School in Washington, DC. Founded by the Jesuits in 1821, Gonzaga
is a college prep school for boys located just blocks from the US Capitol. But
Gonzaga is not totally about academics but also service to the community. The
school houses homeless men on campus during winters as well as provides breakfasts
and lunches for those in need.
In a recent interview Williams adds,
“At our school we have our own
Father McKenna Center. I just went and did a service there at the church in my
school It serves people who are homeless or hungry, people who need help
finding jobs, getting back on track. It’s been there for a while. We go down
there as students and it’s eye-opening. You go down there and it really humbles
you. You go down there to work and help others out. It really helps you
mentally.”
Every theological seminary and religious-affiliated
college needs a library, a chapel, and a “Father McKenna Center”-type community
service center in the center of the campus, either spatially or metaphorically.
Even churches need space for all three- worship space, education space, and
community service.
How a church configures its
community service space will be based on its community situation and needs. For
examples, I am a member of Lenexa Baptist Church located in the affluent Kansas
suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. We have a gymnasium. Each winter we hold an organized
Upward basketball league for children’s teams which feature-
·
Coaches instilling teamwork, skill development,
and character building
·
Referees praying with the players before the
games
·
No scores and statistics kept yet games are
competitive
·
Team awards include Christlikeness
·
Devotionals at halftime for family and friends
The gymnasium is also used for
various other community outreach throughout the year. In contrast, a church
located in more urbanized areas will design its community outreach space to
meet different need
Then to add more bang to tis
discussion I had begun reading The Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight, an Anabaptist-leaning
Anglican scholar of the Christian New Testament and a former member of the mega
Willow Creek Community Church who now teaches at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary
(speaking of a blending of differences!). McKnight examines an encounter Jesus had
with some scribes when Jesus was asked about which commandment was the most
important of all (Mark 12:28-31), to which Jesus replied-
“The first is: ’Hear, Israel. the
Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is
this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is not another
commandment greater than these.”
According to McKnight, Jesus took
the Shema, a major prayer of Judaism as found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 in the
Hebrew Scriptures and added Leviticus 19:18, The result is “The Jesus Creed”
which shows that devotion to God and the foundation of spiritual formation is
about the love of God and others. “The first principle of spiritual formation
is this: A spiritually formed person loves God and others.” Relationship with
God and with others is the beginning point of spiritual formation.
But who exactly are the others to
which we to relate? The Hebrew Scriptures are saturated with references of
God’s love, concern, and provision for the poor, widows, orphans, sojourners,
and strangers. Jesus is portrayed in the Christian New Testament as Messiah for
all who come to Him for forgiveness of their sins and committed to live life
anew.
And despite breakthroughs in the
Early Church to unite males and females, Jews and Gentiles, and slaves and free
persons under the umbrella of Jesus the Church has struggled throughout its
history to complete this process of reconciliation, according to Reynolds Price
in Three Gospels, through “…its hateful rejection of what it sees as
outcasts: the whores and cheats, the traitors and killers, the baffled and
stunned, the social outlaw, the maimed and hideous and contagious.
Jesus did indeed had the last word from
God on this subject in his Parable of the Good Samaritan as recorded in the
Gospels answering the question of, “Who is mt neighbor?” Yet the Church needs
to be reminded continuously of this truth as declared by Miroslav Volf in Exclusion
and Embrace, “There is no need to belabor the point. Indisputably, the
self-giving manifested on the cross and demanded by it lies at the core of the
Christian faith,,,..(including) social issues.”
In closing, I believe that The
Jesus Creed as articulated by McKnight gives a solid theological foundation for
Shurden’s :formula” with its implications for theological education and my implications of the formula for Christian education within
the Church to include the functions of the Church itself.
|
SHEMA |
SHURDEN |
MARLOW |
|
With all our heart With all our soul |
Tender Hearts (piety) |
Evangelistic Task (Community with God) (Community with other Christ-followers) |
|
With all our mind |
Tough Minds (intellect) |
Theological Task (Learning the core doctrines of the faith) |
|
With all our strength |
Trained Hands (Action made effective by honed skills) |
Missional Task (Faithful obedience in ministry & mission} |
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