Edification: How to Discern It
Edification: How to Discern It
Christian Education Is the Education of Love
In the previous issue, I mentioned that love is the biggest gift of all; those who have God's love are filled with the Holy Spirit because love is a spiritual gift. According to the explanation in 1 Corinthians chapters 3, 12 to 14, the church's edification is to build the body of Jesus Christ, the residence of the Holy Spirit, in love. Christian education is therefore "an education of Love."
However, this education of Love differs from that advocated by contemporary society. According to the sociologist Max Weber, the aim of higher education is to produce knowledge. The production of knowledge is accomplished through the process of actuarial, calculation, and the manipulation of the world. Humankind becomes lonely in this process, hiding in solitary places to do research alone, which is essential in such competitive atmospheres where the achievement of an individual's studies are celebrated.
Today's churches are also affected by such ideas. Today's seminaries and theological workers are also affected by such ways. We then must regard the aim of higher education as to produce knowledge.
However, it is not the case for Christian education. Christians believe that education inspires humankind to seek knowledge in an effort to serve others. Based on the idea mentioned above, Parker Palmer wrote a book called To Know as We Are Known: A Spirituality of Education. The New York Times esteems and commends him as a beacon of light in the world of higher education. Palmer points out that to know is a kind of love. In other words, knowledge is a kind of love, and the knowledge of love is to repair and reintegrate the brokenness of human relationships and nature. To know is to love, seeking to enter into the world, into the world of other people, to embrace the lives of others. Meanwhile, it also allows others to enter into our lives and embrace our lives.
Nurturing "Thoughtful" Ministers
Therefore, Palmer considers education as more than just vocational training or the production and manipulation of knowledge; education involves the creation of the life of a person's future. The main mission of education is to train and nurture thoughtful persons whose thoughts are well-conceived and who are considerate of the needs of others. These thoughtful people will look within to reflect on the problems that they encounter. They are the people who "know" and "love," and there are those who have a heart of love.
Applying these kinds of educational ideas to theological education, a seminary should nurture "thoughtful" pastors and those who face human hardships and difficulties with a heart of love. Thoughtful pastors not only do in-depth reflection on problems of faith and human existence, but they always love and care about other people too. Therefore, theological education not only pays attention to knowledge of the Bible, theology, and history, it also emphasizes the cultivation of relationships, helping students to love and trust God, and also to love and trust their fellow men. A seminary is an institution that is dedicated to teaching both knowledge and relationships; more so, it teaches love. In other words, the more seminary students know about God, the deeper their relationship with Him should become, and their experience of God's mystery should deepen as well. Likewise, the more they know about God, the more understanding they should have about human existence and human conditions, and then they will be able to use more wisdom and love when handling problems in the human world.
A Morning Chapel in Which the Whole Seminary Experienced "Discernment"
In light of the educational ideas mentioned above, a special morning chapel was held on November 10 last year. On that morning, a student first led the whole seminary in singing the hymn "Living for Jesus." I then spent about 7 to 8 minutes briefly sharing on the theme of "Edification" for this new school year. I stressed the importance of building the body of Christ which is the main part of edification. I reaffirmed that the Seminary's educational work has been to teach theologia (theological wisdom), erudition, knowledge of the Bible, and theology while ultimately ― teaching students about love. After that, Chaplain Rev. Brian Lam helped us to think along with Richard Osmer about some of the concepts of Christian education. He talked for ten more minutes about 3 important concepts: catechesis, exhortation, and especially on discernment.
The next item was a faculty member's sharing about his experience of having to face being defamed on the Internet during the previous week. We all carefully listened to how the event arose, developed, and unfolded along with his own frank vindication and clarification. It was followed by students' responses, in which they expressed their views and feelings and support of this member. Rev. Lam read aloud a few Bible verses and asked all of us to pray for this member. Finally, Dr. Jonathan Lo led the whole community in giving a closing prayer.
Why did we do this? It was because we love this member, just like Jesus who loves us to the very end; we did this because one of our members might feel depressed and disturbed and we had to help each one of us to learn to differentiate true from false, right from wrong. We must learn to see the whole matter with the heart of Christ. We trust that the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts, leading us to love and to build the body of Christ. I very much hope that our teachers and students will take the opportunity to experience what discernment is so that all of our students might know how to discern as they face all kinds of problems in their church ministry in the future. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, our students can examine each case carefully, make clear what the heart of the matter is so as to make an appropriate decision.
Discernment Is a Truth-seeking Process
This kind of discernment is different from problem-solving in general. Generally speaking, the problem-solving style of thinking is done in this way: To define the problem concerned; to collect the parts that help us to understand the problem; to take into consideration the many available responses; to choose and implement a series of actions; to evaluate the appropriate courses of action and to make changes.
In comparison, discernment is broader in scope than this kind of problem-solving style of thinking. The effort of discernment is not a method of problem-solving which we usually come across in parliamentary debate programs. Instead, it is an operational truth-seeking mechanism. It is not only a problem-solving way of thinking, but also an action of phronesis (practical wisdom). Since phronesis is not limited to logical-mathematical forms of thinking, discernment is a truth-seeking process.
1. The Truth That We Feel
First, the discernment process is composed of the truth that we feel. Emotions play a major role in our daily lives and in our thought processes. For example, in daily communication, we can get in touch with other people's inner states and read the emotional context of the words they speak. We must put empathy into practice when we get in touch with another person's inner state, which means to read the emotional context of their words. Empathy is to listen to somebody's voice inside—to feel other people's joy, excitement, anger, and horror as if it were our own.
However, as we all know, the perceptions and experiences of each person vary from one person to another. Differences in perceptions and experiences imply that it is really hard to feel another person's situation. This is analogous to crossing over to a different culture. When entering a strange land, we are bound to come across one barrier after another. Yet, empathy can help us break through these barriers, enabling us to enter into a different culture. Here, we must learn the other person's language, make cultural negotiations, and consciously acknowledge and feel his thoughts and feelings. One must focus on the understanding of one's perceptions and not on the explanations of one's experiences. In order to feel another person's feelings, a discerner enters into another person's consciousness through imagination to understand their feelings and behaviors.
In this light, discernment is the description and understanding of another person's feelings, such as misery, a guilty conscience, inner peace, or excitement. Discernment is therefore relational, enabling different people to bond together in emotion. It is an exchange agreement, a mutual response.
2. To Think about the Truth We Have Together
Second, the discernment process also requires us to think about the truth we have together. Discernment and rationality do not go against each other. Rationality plays a major role in discernment. Of course, rationality is context-based, that is to say we cannot segregate the doer from the context; one cannot be sealed off from their faith, desire, morality, and the many other contexts in society. Not only is it a technical ability of the best means to achieve a goal, it is also the ability to negotiate, to take action, and to give reason to an action when there is a clash of responsibilities and expectations. This kind of rationality requires the ability to put rationality into practice, to make an appropriate decision, and to take prompt action according to the current situation. In this light, to discern is not only to argue with our rationality—to seek a solution to our problems—it is also a technique to seek a way of life within our rationality. Therefore, when we talk about the truth we have together, the truth we are dealing with is not a purely rational truth because such a truth cannot be segregated from other values, for example communion, peace, righteousness, love, and joy. Understanding it in this light, the truth that we have can inspire our courage, patience, and hope, and develop our wisdom, honesty, and goodness.
3. The Truth That We Have Received
Third, the discernment process is composed of the truth that we have received, which is a compact form and a result of theologia. The absorption of theologia consists in the traditional collective wisdom and the revelation of biblical stories; the latter is especially important. Both of these endow humankind with an important ability to watch and observe attentively the realities of life and the world. They pull together important themes in life and daily life events and explain the meaning of individual and unexpected events in their own respective contexts. They provide a vision that unifies a good number of events and give an explanation to their meaning enabling humankind to see, watch, and imagine.
In this way, when dealing with some contemporary issues, the whole community together can consider the analogy between the Bible and tradition with the issue at hand so as to make a discernment about a certain goal or action.
4. The Truth We Have Experienced in Prayer
Fourth, the discernment process comprises the truth we have experienced in prayer. Prior to studying the Bible, thinking theologically, giving a personal sharing and expressing one's opinion, there should be a time of quietness in prayer. Likewise, after collecting wisdom gained through sharing and discussion, the whole community ought to have a time of quietness in prayer. In prayer, the whole community together feels and reflects on the positive and negative impacts of some decisions. The prayerful spirit can help us to discern the existence of the power of evil, be mindful of the reality of human sinfulness and the human ability to distort truth. In face of the multiple dimensions of human sinfulness, we need to be humble before God so that we can morally respond to controversy.
Through prayer, we pray that the Holy Spirit will light up and give us guidance to see our own and others' faults, blind spots, and dilemmas and lead us to go further in Truth. In prayer, it is analogous to steering a fishing boat, through spreading and striking the sails, turning and adjusting the rudder strategically, and trimming the sails to the wind, we allow the boat to move forward through the sea. Likewise, we are also waiting and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit so that our hearts can be fine-tuned in prayer.
Naturally, discernment must use prayer so that we can listen to the prayer of the Holy Spirit which is in our midst to make known the will of God and help us to go along with God's decisions.
Discernment Is the Unity of Love and Putting Love into Practice
Overall, discernment makes use of an operational mechanism that is broad and truth-seeking. In comparison with the problem-solving way of thinking, the experience employed in discernment is broad and rich. Discernment facilitates the exchange of information, reduces the influence of personal interest, and emphasizes the will of God (rather than ideological control). It is different from the thinking style and other methods used in parliamentary procedures to solve problems. It does not set out to win a debate since winning a debate without convincing the other party is only a partial victory. Ultimately, what is gained is a truth without reconciliation. Relatively speaking, discernment is to seek a holistic and abundant truth, a truth that gives people freedom. This kind of truth can bring about the transformation of a person's heart and make synergy and co-walking possible in people's lives. This kind of discernment is the unity of love and putting love into practice.
I pray that God will allow our teachers and students to teach and learn more about discernment, help us to experience the truth of discernment, enable us to discern the truth in things taking place in our world and the will of God in this generation of chaos.
Feb 2016