Communities of Faith

The meeting began with a short video describing the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu pilgrimage and festival that attracts tens of millions of devotees.

What is a community of faith? What defines it? How do you know one when you see it? And what, if anything, should you expect a community of faith to do for you?

The Kumbh Mela is the largest meeting of faith-driven people in the world. Two to five million people at a single time, 50 to 60 million people over several weeks, gather to worship, pray, and cleanse themselves in the holy rivers of India. Is this a faith community? Is God there?

The naked Saddhus who lead the faithful are thought to be transported at lightspeed from their isolated mountainous hideouts into the midst of the Kumbh Mela. A PhD friend in India, a scientist, described this supernatural translocation of the Saddhus to me in the most descriptive terms. He had no doubt it was a genuine phenomenon. To my mind, that was a real leap of faith.

What makes a faith community and what should we expect from one? Is it the faith that makes the community? Or is it the community that makes the faith? Or is it both? Or neither? Must a faith community be religious? Must it be social? Must a faith community have shared assets? Must it have common beliefs? Must a faith community be a sustained community or can it be a spontaneous community? Does it take time to establish a faith community? Or can it be instantaneous?

And how many does it take to form a community anyway? For the Jews, for certain kinds of prayers there must be 10 men in order to have the community prayer. In Islam there needs to be 40 men in order to provide the prayer. Does a faith community say something about us? Or does it really say something more about God?

Paul provides a definition of a faith community:

 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let’s approach God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. [Here we see the Kumbh Mela—DW] Let’s hold firmly to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let’s consider how to encourage one another in love and good deeds, not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:19-25)

Note in this passage the call to sincerity, the need for self purification, the provoking of one another to good works and the stimulation of love.

Does a community of faith require a uniform view of God? M. Scott Peck, the definer of the stages of faith we’ve studied before, also defined the process by which a community is born. He described four stages of faith in the building of a true community. Stage one he called pseudo community. In this stage, everyone is polite. Everyone is well behaved, agreeable, and at peace. No differences are aired, no contrary viewpoints are discussed. It is “pseudo” because no group of people—not even a family—can be at peace all the time. Indeed, this may be particularly true of a family.

Inevitably, in a group of people, differences of opinion arise. And so different viewpoints, different beliefs, different ways of seeing the world and—most telling in a community of faith—different ways of seeing God arise as well. These differences cannot just be smoothed over or simply ignored. When they bubble up, as they inevitably do, the community reaches stage two, which is defined by Scott Peck as a chaotic stage in which differences are out in the open and are contentious. The tranquility of the pseudo community in stage one is exposed as fraudulent. Here we see conflict over beliefs, over practices, and over culture. We are all too familiar with this chaotic stage; probably all of us have experienced it.

In our community of faith life, according to Peck, the only way out of that chaos is through emptiness, which defines stage three faith. It is when people in a community shut up and listen, instead of arguing their point. Emptiness is a time of setting aside preconceived notions and ideas and beliefs, a time to be silent, a time to listen to the ideas of others and to humbly ask God for guidance.

Many faith groups never reach emptiness and therefore never reach stage four, which is true community. Instead, they fluctuate back and forth between pseudo community and chaos. Disagreements flare up then they settle down. But without the work of the emptiness of stage three, true community cannot be achieved. One must be content to stay in pseudo community when everything seems calm and peaceful. But that has been because there is no truth. True faith in a community involves hearing others’ viewpoints and humbly submitting to God’s will; not just pushing one’s own agenda. We see this well illustrated in a Bible passage often used by church leaders to put a face on an ideal community:

 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all the believers were together and had all things in common; and they would sell their property and possessions and share them with all, to the extent that anyone had need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:41-47)

Please note here we see love and praying and staying together in harmony and sharing and socializing. We see even uniformity. But then, alas:

Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had a heated argument and debate with them, the brothers determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. Therefore, after being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and they were bringing great joy to all the brothers and sisters. When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were received by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to keep the Law of Moses.”:

 The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Since this is the case, why are you putting God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our forefathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”

 Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas: Judas who was called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, and they sent this letter with them: “The apostles and the brothers who are elders, to the brothers and sisters in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles: Greetings.  Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have confused you by their teaching, upsetting your souls, it seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from acts of sexual immorality; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.”

 All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles.  After they stopped speaking, James responded, saying, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has described how God first concerned Himself about taking a people for His name from among the Gentiles. The words of the Prophets agree with this, just as it is written:  ‘After these things I will return,

And I will rebuild the fallen tabernacle of David, And I will rebuild its ruins, And I will restore it, So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,’ Says the Lord, who makes these things known from long ago.  

Therefore, it is my judgment that we do not cause trouble for those from the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols, from acts of sexual immorality, from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has those who preach him in every city, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

Here we see the stages of true faith community being played out. The early Jewish Christians—the Christians described in Acts 2—were ideally aligned, with no conflict, no diversity, and no strife. But then Gentiles came to join the group, bringing different beliefs, different background, different culture, different worldview. They wanted to be treated differently. They saw God in the world through different lenses. No circumcision for them; no Mosaic law. Big problems, chaos, protests, argument, anger. Stage two big-time chaos—the inevitable outcome.

But the way out of chaos is clearly spelled out as well: “All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they stopped speaking, James responded, saying, “Brothers, listen to me.” This is the way to true community: Silence, listening, and the holding of one’s peace. It is a compromise: “Therefore, it is my judgment that we do not cause trouble for those from the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols, from acts of sexual immorality, from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has those who preach him in every city, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.” He goes on to make an argument for Moses, saying it seemed good to the elders and the apostles to choose the men who could go and give this represented viewpoint. So here we see the submission of our preconceived notions to a spirit of humility.

Does everyone need a community of faith? Must we know one another to be a community of faith? Does a community of faith require physical contact? Are we a faith community here, as we meet every Saturday morning to discuss things of faith?

Some years ago, David wrote about our community in the Afterword of a book he published based on our discussions. He talks about coming to this weekly class at the Oakwood Seventh Day Adventist Church in Taylor, Michigan, in 2012. He talks about his religious persuasion, his religious point of view. He prefers Daoism and process theology to Adventism and Christianity. But then he goes on to say it was a delight to discover that the class is similarly inclined, like him, to seek spiritual enlightenment and enrichment in part through the inclusion of other faiths and ideas rather than the exclusionary practices typical of most organized religious bodies.

“I was happy,” he wrote, “to find that the Bible had something to teach me after all. For decades, I dismissed most of it, including the entire Old Testament, as inconsistent, invalid, unreliable, and frankly unbelievable mythology passed down by men of ancient history. And not least,” he said, “I discovered a beautiful and loving family of spiritual brothers and sisters I never knew I had, I found my spiritual family in a place that (forgive me) was about the last place I thought to look for one.”

What does make a faith community? Can we—should we—expect something from the church, the synagogue, the mosque, the temple? Must we expect a community of faith to be dependent upon the venue itself? Does everyone need a community of faith? Do most people need a community of faith? Is aloneness a condition for faith? Can you be alone in faith? Can you be alone in the Kumbh Mela?

Faith community has been a rich part of American culture and history, but it is in decline. Something as essential as church membership—a formative element of our culture—is quietly slipping away. A recent article in The Guardian entitled “‘Allergic reaction to US religious right’ fueling decline of religion, experts say” discusses a recent poll:

Fewer than half of Americans belong to a house of worship, a new study shows, but religion – and Christianity in particular – continues to have an outsize influence in US politics, especially because it is declining faster among Democrats than Republicans. Just 47% of the US population are members of a church, mosque or synagogue, according to a survey by Gallup, down from 70% two decades ago – in part a result of millennials turning away from religion but also, experts say, a reaction to the swirling mix of rightwing politics and Christianity pursued by the Republican party.

The evidence comes as Republicans in some states have pursued extreme “Christian nationalist” policies, attempting to force their version of Christianity on an increasingly uninterested public. This week the governor of Arkansas signed a law allowing doctors to refuse to treat LGBTQ people on religious grounds, and other states are exploring similar legislation. Gallup began asking Americans about their church membership in 1937 – and for decades the number was always above 70%. That began to change in 2000, and the number has steadily dropped ever since.

Some of the decline is attributable to changing generations, with about 66% of people born before 1946 are still members of a church, compared with just 36% of millennials. Among other groups Gallup reported, the decline in church membership stands out among self-identified Democrats and independents. The number of Democratic church members dropped by 25% over the 20-year period, with independents decreasing by 18%. Republican church members declined too, but only by 12%.

David Campbell, professor and chair of the University of Notre Dame’s political science department and co-author of Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics, said a reason for the decline among those groups is political – an “allergic reaction to the religious right”. “Many Americans – especially young people – see religion as bound up with political conservatism, and the Republican party specifically,” Campbell said. “Since that is not their party, or their politics, they do not want to identify as being religious. Young people are especially allergic to the perception that many – but by no means all – American religions are hostile to LGBTQ rights.”

Research by Campbell shows that a growing number of Americans have turned away from religion as politicians – particularly Republicans – have mixed religion with their politics. Campbell says there has always been an ebb and flow in American adherence to religion, but he thinks the current decline is likely to continue.

“I see no sign that the religious right, and Christian nationalism, is fading. Which in turn suggests that the allergic reaction will continue to be seen – and thus more and more Americans will turn away from religion,” he said.

The number of people who identify as non-religious has grown steadily in recent decades, according to Michele Margolis, associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of From Politics to the Pews. More than 20% of all Americans are classed as “nones”, Margolis said, and more than a third of Americans under 30. “That means non-identification is going to continue becoming a larger share of population over time as cohort replacement continues to occur,” Margolis said. But she agreed another factor is the rightwing’s infusion of politics with theism.

“As religion has been closed linked with conservative politics, we’ve had Democrats opting out of organized religion, or being less involved, and Republicans opting in,” she said. Christian nationalists – who believe America was established as, and should remain, a Christian country – have pushed a range of measures to thrust their version of religion into American life.

In states including Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida, Republicans have introduced legislation which would variously hack away at LGTBQ rights, reproductive rights, challenge the ability of couples to adopt children, and see religion forced into classrooms.

The governor of Arkansas recently signed into law a bill that allows medical workers to refuse to treat LGBTQ people on religious grounds. Montana is set to pass a law which would allow people or businesses to discriminate, based on religion, against the LGBTQ community.

“Do not make me NOT do what my God tells me I have to do,” said the Republican Montana congressman John Fuller, a supporter of the law. Alison Gill, vice-president for legal and policy at American Atheists, who authored a report into the creep of Christian extremism in the US, warned that the drop-off in religious adherence in America could actually accelerate that effort, rather than slow it down.

“Surveys of those who identify with Christian nationalist beliefs consistently show that this group feels that they are subject to more discrimination and marginalization than any other group in society, including Islamic people, Black people, atheists, [and] Jewish people,” Gill said. “They are experiencing their loss of prominence in American culture as an unacceptable attack on their beliefs – and this is driving much of the efforts we are seeing to cling on to power, undermine democracy, and fight for ‘religious freedom’ protections that apply only to them.”

The influence of religion over politics is stark, Gill said. “America perceives itself to be a predominantly religious society, even if the facts no longer agree. Politicians often feel beholden to pronounce their religious faith – and are attacked for a perceived lack of it,” she said. While the danger of a rightwing backlash is real, Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said that the Gallup data suggests the US is moving in a positive direction.

“We have this constitutional separation of church and state in America, and our constitution is godless, and it says you can’t have a religious test for public office, and yet you virtually have to wear religion on your sleeve in order to be elected,” Gaylor said. “There is movement [away from religion], and we’re just delighted to see this. We think it’s great that Americans are finally waking up.”

Do we really need religion? Do we need a faith community at all? What defines a faith community, especially in this day and age? Is God really a Republican? Has faith in the community lost its way? Do we need faith communities, and what does the future of faith hold? Where do you think your faith should take you? And what is the value, if any, have a community of faith?

Donald: Is this class a faith community? We don’t have any set principles by which this class operates, but we share an understanding of a few principles. Open mindedness regarding spiritual enlightenment is one, even though this class is rooted in the Seventh Day Adventist Church—conducted around a table in a classroom within a Seventh Day Adventist church when it breaks out for Sabbath School. I am a Seventh Day Adventist and it wasn’t a difficult thing for me to discover this class within Adventism, though it was a bit of a surprise.

We all have our traditions which we want to continue through generation after generation. So it’s a bit discouraging to see the structure of religion in America in decline. But can we expect it to be the same decade after decade, as things evolve and change? Shouldn’t disappointment be tempered by the understanding that this is just a new way of doing religion. Just because we’re not doing it the old way does not mean it’s not valid, not right. But in the context of tradition, it is a challenge.

C-J: Chaos and emptiness are core to faith. The whole call to faith is being with others who don’t think like us, and seeking a revelation in terms of what’s best for everyone in the community, whether it’s a neighborhood or a church or a workplace. There are many different kinds of community, but in order to make it work, we do have to monitor our internal dialogue (“This guy’s just whacked! I’m not doing this!”) and think instead: “Let me at least be open to it and think about the bigger picture.”

The common denominator in humanity is peace and the ability to communicate effectively about something that may not line up with our internal belief system but can enlarge it. So it’s very important to have communities, whatever they may be, but I think the goal is always not about finding common ground, but common purpose. And the common purpose is to be a better player in the team, to be open to pathways, to sharing and modifying ideas. I think it’s what effective communication is supposed to be and the process should change us spiritually and lead to the goal of true community.

Robin: I joined this community of faith for encouragement, and for friendship, and also because we don’t study a “little” book like the hard, quarterly, lesson book many of us grew up with. We study the holy book, the Scriptures, the life of Jesus. It’s important to me that I not pat myself on the back and that I accept the message to take the love, the faith, the joy, and the peace—even amidst chaos—and use it in everyday life, that I learn about who God is and what he expects, that I have a relationship with God which then can give me a real love and concern and support for others—who don’t have to be exactly like me (which I think is too our natural human tendency to want).

Too many times, we have to say that we all have to be relatively the same, which is not even what Jesus did as far as selecting his followers—some were educated, some were uneducated; some had means, some were very poor. The ones who followed him gave up everything.

So to me, this is about learning, with humility, what is it that God expects for our relationship to him, so that he can fill us with love and relationship with others.

Bryan: “Community of faith” means a lot of different things to different people. It can mean a club of people who believe in or do the same things, or look at same results through common pathways. I agree that communities of faith are too often too concerned with ensuring adherence to membership rights and responsibilities versus being inclusive of those who may not care much for such things. I’m for tolerance versus intolerance but I think religion in this country right now is becoming so intolerant of people who don’t conform to some specific set of parameters. This defeats the purpose of faith community where people of unlike beliefs can come together and explore those toward a common cause.

Religions around the world have one thing in common: Belief in a deity, belief in somebody bigger than yourself. But too often it’s used as a battering ram against those who don’t hold the same belief. So is community of faith an important thing? I think it’s a human condition to want to belong and we look for things to belong to that we feel comfortable in. Maybe we should be looking to belong to things we are uncomfortable in, to look for commonalities, instead of things that separate us.

Reinhard: I think this group is very much influenced by culture. As a foreigner who has spent a long time in America, I think I can draw comparisons. The Seventh Day Adventist church I attend here has a very strong leader and a program whereby every year or two they “spin off” a new church as much as 50 miles away, with its own strong leader to unite the members and designed to be self supporting, Each new church starts with 10 members or so and eventually grows into a formal, established church. They’ve been doing this for so many years, and this is the only church in the entire region that does it.

After Jesus returned to heaven and the disciples met together, they were people with things in common: A common purpose and belief in the resurrection and ascension. Their very enthusiasm attracted new members, not just their purpose and belief. All churches in the US, whatever denomination they have, are affected by cultural and political influences, and their challenge is to maintain unity of faith of the church. External influence strong enough to break church unity pretty much determines the longevity, the faith, and ultimately the survival of the church.

In our class we know our purpose—to enhance our faith—and we share common beliefs. I think we all feel comfortable in it. We have a positive, shared outlook, and I think everybody feels good. Even though we may feel our faith is being challenged sometimes, it just brings us closer to God and I think we all hold dearly to this purpose and to the belief that learning more about the love of God helps us live closer to God and Jesus. These things have held our class together for many years.

Kiran: What kind of faith community was the Good Samaritan in? Samaritans didn’t believe the traditional Jewish beliefs. They acknowledged God but didn’t worship like the Jews. Yet if the Good Samaritan is typical, we can deduce that seeing somebody in need, they would take care of them. That would seem to be the ideal faith community, worried less about faith because worry can’t affect something given freely by God to everybody. All we have to do is confess and ask God to take care of us.

I should reserve my worries for my neighbors, I think. I think that should be the way faith community is. But oftentimes we worry more about maintaining uniformity of belief and get scared when someone shows up believing differently than we do. In the beginning, when I came into the church, there was so much to read, so much to learn, it was fascinating. But after five or six years, the repetition grows boring. I’ve read all the 2300 prophecies about 20 times over and can recite all sorts of things by rote. But I want to keep learning something new, and that invites conflict with people next to me who worry that I’m drifting away from the faith. That is not the case.

My connection with God is strong. But I want to have Bible study and be united without having to worry about my suit and tie. I don’t want to worry about a uniform. I behaved conventionally at first, of course, and was scared by unconventional people who expressed a diversity of thought. If churches could go through the natural progression of the stages of faith, perhaps we wouldn’t have this conflict.

Robin: I know the Samaritans believed in God and looked for a Messiah. Did they sacrifice as well? Exactly how did they differ from Judaism?

Don: One difference was venue: They worshiped on a different mountain.

Robin: I knew because of the woman at the well who said to Jesus: “You say we’re supposed to worship in Jerusalem and we say we’re supposed to worship here on this mountain.” But I didn’t know where the line was drawn, how exactly were they different.

C-J: Samaritans were Moabites. Their relationship with their father, Noah, was incestuous, so the Jews wanted nothing to do with them on that score alone. But also they worshiped a different deity. They had many gods—a fertility god, for instance. Throughout the area, the various tribes worshiped their own pantheons. The Samaritans went their way, while the focus of the Israelites was on a singular God whom they worshiped in Jerusalem—a tent city at that time, long before David’s temple and Solomon’s temple, which was really a city complex with a theocratic government. It was many generations before Jesus told the Good Samaritan parable, a story about acceptance, tolerance, non-judgment. The divine doesn’t see a separation. That was the message.

I love the story of the woman at the well. To me, God wasn’t addressing sin in that story. He was addressing a physical community, because that woman could have been passed out of circumstance to many husbands. She could have been a child bride at 12 and have had no say in it. A man could dismiss a wife by saying: “I divorce you” three times. If her husband dies, she’s required to marry the brother. All these things make her a victim of circumstance. It’s not about her moral character. I think Jesus was saying to her: “You are loved greatly by something greater than you know.”

She had no voice in her community. But in our spiritual communities, we should get to that place where we have chaos. We’re not saying “Convince me that you’re right and I’m ignorant.” We’re saying “Help me understand.” There’s a big difference in the approach. We’ve all been the woman at the well.

Donald: The Seventh Day Adventist Church is one of several highly organized, structured religions in America. Adventism is distinguished by its highly successful experiment with education—a dangerous thing to do (ask the Amish!) We highly value being a peculiar people. Is that something we still strive for?

Jay: There’s no doubt that a community has to have a defining characteristic and some commonality or it’s not a community. As human beings we strive for order, for commonality, for a construct on which to build and grow. There are many faith communities, none of them wrong or right; they’re just faith communities. The question is: Is God asking us to strive for some kind of particular faith community? Is there an ideal faith community? My personal opinion is it would have to be pretty broad and loosely defined.

The Pharisees were a well established, narrow, precisely defined faith community. As I look at the ministry of Christ, what I think he’s saying about that kind of community is there’s a lot of danger in it. When you very narrowly define what your community is and believe it makes your community better than others, you run into trouble. If your community can make you more like Christ, that’s wonderful. But to say that yours is the only community that can do that is wrong.

When a narrowly defined community claims hold the keys to the truth then it is working against the idea of being more like Christ. We should look to be united by our broad differences rather than by our narrow similarities. A faith community willing to be open and to examine itself and be willing to progress through Peck’s stages of faith is a pretty interesting concept. There aren’t a whole lot of places that get beyond chaotic, because even at the chaotic phase in faith communities there usually isn’t emptiness in which the whole faith community can become something else and remain united. Instead, the faith community splinters. Those who thought one way go in one direction and those who think a different way go in another direction. There’s not typically an emptiness phase, a listening phase.

David: The parable of the Good Samaritan is an example of Jesus packing so much meaning into so few words. It is not just about a man obeying the golden rule and being kind to another human being. It is also about showing what faith community really is: Inclusive. It includes a Samaritan. It includes a woman (at the well) of ill repute and from a different tribe. For Jesus, the faith community includes everybody, all of humanity. It is not any one group.

So what is it the difference between the individual of faith and the community of faith? The Good Samaritan was an individual of faith. He acted upon his faith as an individual, not as a Samaritan. The point of the parable was that treating your fellow human being as you would wish to be treated is paramount to God and is the ultimate expression of faith. If you express that faith then you’re united with God and all humanity.

C-J: Historically the people who held the pen—the priests and scribes—were very political. Their control of messaging conferred a very powerful and unquestioned authority which traditional churches still cling to. Allegiance is not an option and those who deviate are soon removed. Silence isn’t enough. They are removed. I don’t think we’ve moved the needle too far. The separation of church and state and education is vital. A child who attends a parochial school or a school of a particular faith is going to be indoctrinated in the traditions of that faith.

This boxes in the community and I think it’s a mistake. I believe it’s the parents responsibility to help their child maneuver through a moral compass and develop beneficial thinking. When you get older and have a little more maturity, you can venture out and look out and ask “Mommy, what is that? Why does it work that way?”

I think it started all the way back when somebody picked up a stick and put it to clay to create a message, whether it was for commerce, or theology, or to tell a story, write a poem, or whatever. There was a medium and there was messaging. Today we believe education should be accessible to all. And that’s where we make a quantum leap. We no longer want to absolutely control the messaging, or the medium. And it’s a risk. It’s a very big risk when you say “Go out and swim in that ocean and tell me what you find.”

So a lot of people make the decision to be in a parochial setting where you’re really expected to perpetuate that messaging. As a teacher, how much am I going to share with the students? If I’m from a different place, or my knowledge would support a different philosophy, it’s very difficult answering certain questions. Because they’re expecting you to tell the truth. We revere people with education and teachers have a responsibility to impart knowledge in a way that’s impartial, that allows a child to ask the big question without saying, “Oh, no, no, don’t go there. You can’t question that. You can question this, but not that.” And then she goes, “Why?” and you go, “Because we just don’t do that.” It’s not good enough. By the time a child is an adolescent, even a seven year old, that’s not good enough.

Don: One of the most liberalizing things you can do to someone is to educate them. It’s a very difficult thing in a very conservative faith group. Adventism seems a bit of a conundrum: It places great emphasis on education yet is somewhat conservative.

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