Emergent Christian Homeschool

So, WHY read the Bible, then? Part 3

2010-07-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

". . .I am not an idolater. In deconstruction, the Scriptures are an archive, not the arche (which means they are not God). I take the second commandment very seriously and I do not put false gods - like books (biblical inerrantism). . . - before God, who is the 'wholly other.'"
~John D. Caputo: What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

It's not that no longer hold the Bible in high esteem or that I don't deem it credible or worthy of all the things it claims of itself. But, one thing I've come to realize is that the Bible never claims that it is God or even on an equal par with the Holy Trinity. I believe God is perfect and without fault; I don't believe the Bible is.

So, why read the Bible then?

I've spent some time reading through and absorbing the wonderful book The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. The idea in this book is that we don't need a bunch of how-tos from either people or books in order to map out the best path to sanctification. Sanctification comes as we yield ourselves, moment-by-moment, to the will of God - that will being whatever God has handed us at that particular moment. And there is no need for over-thinking, over-analyzing, over-researching, and even over-praying decisions. When we live a life that is consciously yielded to the will of God, seeped in a closeness with Him, we can rest first in the idea that we will just know what we should do and, second, if we mess up, God's grace is sufficient to cover that mistake.

All that to say that, I believe we read the Bible in order to nurture that relationship and closeness with God. In his book, Reading the Bible Again For the First Time, Marcus Borg refers to the Bible as a finger pointing us toward God (pg. 34). The Bible is not God, Himself; rather, it is a directive, an arrow, a map toward God from whom we get our answers in life and in whom we find all we need for spiritual growth.

So, I was raised a somewhat fundamentalist, evangelical Christian who looked at the Bible as the source of reference from which to gain all direction and all the answers. It, I was taught, was the perfect, word-for-word dictation of God - without error. Now, thanks to my emergent-thinking husband, I view the Bible as the inspired Word of God, that, in spite of any possible error in transcription or interpretation, can point me to the God who is without fault.

HOW Art Happens in Our Home School

2010-07-29T04:07:00.000-07:00

From September09

1. I guess you could say that we follow a sort of history-based unit-study approach to home-learning. So, using time-lines like this one, we incorporate our art studies into what we are learning that week in our other studies. Using history as our guide, we pick an artist from the decade we are studying, look at their works on the internet or in books from the library, discuss their methods, and they try to put what we've learned into practice by making our own art. I have found MaryAnn Kohl's book very helpful in working this method out. Using her books, alone, you could also study art through American history, world cultures, science, story books, math. . .

From winter-spring 2010

2. We love holidays! We pick the liturgical year apart looking for special days to celebrate, and we pick each holy day apart looking for something to create in our celebrations. From ornaments, to cards, to special paintings, to garden markers. . . art that is tied to the liturgical year not only provides a way for us to let our creative juices flow, they also teach us valuable spiritual lessons and draw our hearts toward God, the Great Creator and Artist.

From teenybutterfly

3. Using some sound judgement mixed with a good dose of flexibility, I use the main idea from this wonderful parenting book, and let my kids have a little freedom with the art supplies. Now, Daddy has put an indefinite ban on markers, but the kids have ready access to crayons, pencils, paper, scissors, glue, tape, ribbon, old magazines, stickers. . . and even some water-based paints and paint brushes. This is just one way I "romance" my children's hearts.

Pictures: 1) Gordon "cave painting" when we were studying nomads and cave dwellers in ancient history, 2) Teeny painting heart valentines for the kids at church - we wrote John 3:16 on each after they dried and talked about the most important, sacrificial, and unconditional love, and 3) one of my favorite Teeny works of art that she created one afternoon in the corner of the play room - this one, fortunately, was on paper.

HOW We Get "Physical Education" into Our Homeschool Curriculum

2010-07-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

From June10

So, WHY Read the Bible, Then? Part 2

2010-07-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

My father came to Christ while reading a Gideon Bible in a hotel room in Minneapolis. This was a pivotol moment in the story of our family that tied an extra knot in our connection with the Bible. My dad was, thereafter, a Gideon until he became a Southern Baptist minister a few years back. Between my dad, church, and a private Baptist school education, I knew what we believed concerning the Bible. It was inerrant and infallible and the only thing we, as Christians, needed to direct us in our faith walk. It had to be all these things. If it failed to be even one, after all, there would be absolutely no reason to even read it.

When Jason began questioning the extent to which fundamental Christians have raised the Bible up as the authority, I balked like crazy. I felt like everything I had ever believed - in fact, the primary reason for my beliefs - was being stripped away and exposing raw flesh. It literally pained me to hear him somethimes, and I fought vehemently against his ideas.

But, after realizing that argument after argument ended in my claiming pure belief and Jason questioning if my faith was based in The Bible or on Christ and God's Grace, I began to look very honestly and ungaurdedly at my deepest thoughts about the Bible. I began to see that, with so much human involvement, from the original transcribers of God's Word to modern-day interpretations in all their varied forms, error was, in fact, possible, if not probable. But that just poured alcohol on the already exposed flesh wound. Why should I continue to read the Bible if it might not be the completely perfect authority I had been taught it was?

My first answer to this question came from two of my favorite authors: Phyllis Tickle and James K. A. Smith. I was in the backyard, feet soaking in a cool wading pool, reading Phyllis Tickle's The Great Emergence when the first revelation came. Phyllis, at the end of the book, tackled the great "authority" question with grace and common sense. Where, in the midst of this Great Emergence, will Christians find their new authority - will we continue to find our authority in the possibly fallible Bible or will we find it in absolutely fallible man? Her answer: "both". It seems a simple enough word and solution, but it was ground-shaking to me at that moment. All of a sudden a salve for my wound appeared, and I needed only to apply it. But, first, I had to check with a less controversial author who is, yet, sympathetic to the Emergent Christian movement.

So I pulled out James K. A. Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?. And sure enough, his thoughts on the subject were more moderate, but re-itterated Phyllis' belief in the old Quaker tradition of communal interpretation of the Scriptures. Because the Bible is interpretted with such broad differences by so many people, it is important to, as a group of believers, go to the Bible and read and interpret together. The authority should not, in fact, be placed in the Bible alone, but in the Bible and the community which is interpretting it together. The salve was applied, and the healing began. But even a salve leaves a wound open to the outside elements and bumps, and, consequently pain. While this settled my questions about the "authority" question, it still didn't settle just why I, as an individual, should read the Bible privately.

So, WHY Read the Bible, Then? Part 1

2010-07-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Bible. It is has been an object of heated debate in my house and one of the most touchy points of the Emergent Church movement. I can't tell you the number of times my husband, Jason, has read something in a book or heard something from a teacher and come to talk with me about the idea only to watch the hair on my neck bristle up and listen to me as I start hissing and wheezing like an angry cat. Hey, I wasn't raised by a Southern Baptist minister for nothing!

Sola Scriptura and the inerrancy of the Bible are beliefs that are very deeply ingrained in and loved by modern fundamentalist Christians. They are, beyond the crucifixion and grace of Jesus, the foundation of our faith. It is no surprise, then, that the fact that the Emergent Church believes that the Bible could, in fact, have some error in it puts them in the same category with blasphemers and heretics in the minds of many evangelical Christians.

Unfortunately, we forget that Martin Luther, father of Sola Scriptura, if you would, was, himself labeled a heretic by the fundamentalist Christians of his day who believed that the Bible needed correct interpreting by a learned priest. And, beyond that, almost the entire people of Israel, those who first believed in our God, consider the entire New Testament to be heretical - in fact, they believe that Jesus was, himself, a heretic.

In arguments with my husband over these issues, I am always, ultimately, reduced to the idea that "this is just what I believe"; I can't prove that God's Word is without fault or that it, alone, is all that is needed for Christ-centered living. The most I can do is quote verses from the Bible; but even I can see how ridiculous it is to fight a battle with bullets that can't possibly breach a person's bullet proof armor. So, I come down to belief and faith, which really is the foundation of for all of us. Unfortunately, if something is merely a belief, it is open to questioning and re-formation.

So, I begin to see the possibilities in what my husband and many in the Emergent Church movement assert. The Bible could, in fact, have some fault - God's words may have been altered as "the men of old" wrote them down, they most certainly could have been wrongly translated even in the earliest of translations, and they are most definitely interpretted differently by different church groups - all of whom believe that their interpretation of the infallible Word of God is correct. Yes, there is definitely room for errancy.

But I had a hard time just letting myself accept this possibility. Being raised as I was, being taught as I was, I just couldn't deal with it. If the Bible could be fallible. . . then why the heck read it in the first place!

HOW We Bring the Liturgy Home

2010-07-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I tend to approach our family worship much the same way I approach my own personal times of worship - very inconsistently. No, I mean, I'm pretty consistent about spending time with God; I'm inconsistent in what I do during those times of quiet alone with Him. And it translates quite a bit to how I deal with family worship.

In the past, we've done catechisms, word-studies, Bible stories, pre-set devotionals. . . We've incorporated praise and worship, hymns, and old choruses. . . We've centered our worship around the liturgical year, my whims, and the kids' misbehaviors. All so inconsistently.

And it was with this inconsistency that I went into reading James K. A. Smith's Desiring the Kingdom.

My goal in family worship has always been to establish a solid foundation for my children - some sense of stability and faithfulness found in time spent together with God. I've always assumed that if I could lay this foundation, my kids would naturally be directed toward God without a bunch of shoving and prodding and poking by me - that they would come to naturally desire and love God all on their own.

Smith seems to agree with this idea as stated in the first chapter of his book:

"We are what we love, and our love is shaped primarily by liturgical practices that take hold of our gut and aim our hearts to certain ends."

So, you can see how my inconsistent family worship times could be seen as, well, counter-productive to this shaping process. . .

In one of the last chapters of his book, Smith disects a liturgical worship service, examining the formative qualities of each segment of a typical service. It is very interesting, but one wonders how to apply this information on a practical, domestic level.

What I decided to do was look at these various examined segments of a liturgical worship service, bring them down to a "domestic church" level, and schedule them neatly through the day - three seperate times of family worship that, together, get all the bases covered. This is what it ended up looking like:

Morning Worship:

Read a Psalm.
Pray together for God's mercy and grace as we greet the day.
Impart blessings upon one another: Each person says something encouraging or uplifting to the person sitting next to them at the time.
Sing a hymn together: I try to have us memorize a seasonally appropriate hymn at a time.

Afternoon Worship:

Read through the teachings of Jesus together.
Confess sins to one another: Parents confess their sins, too (at least the ones that are PG rated) - this has proven to be the most meaningful and productive part of the entire day.
Go over the Gospel Message with the kids - Jesus came to die for those sins that we commit, and it is through Him that we find forgiveness, cleansing, and the grace to do better.
Pray together for forgiveness and thank God for His unending grace and mercy.
Recite the Apostle's Creed together.
Listen to praise and worship music: Dancing and singing along.

Evening Worship:

Pray for others, outside our immediate family: Each person shares some person, group of people, or problem they want to pray about / for.
Read a Bible story together.
Do the one thing I am consistent about: "Now I Lay Me. . ." and "Jesus Loves Me".

This all seems extremely detailed, I know; and probably pretty elaborate. Many times we have to shorten these worship times, cutting things out, or skipping parts all-together. But, this is the general habit I'm attempting to get and keep us all in. I think the important part is being consistent in sharing our family's faith with our children - laying that foundation - forming that desire and love in our kids.

Picture Courtesy of christianphotos.net.

WHY "Emerging Christian" Homescool?

2010-06-30T06:07:00.000-07:00

My husband, Jason, credits the college professor who, back in the late '90s, introduced him to Foucault.

That is only a hazy memory in my mind, involving more my husband's obsession with prisons than with post-modernity.

I do remember Jason buying a copy of Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. I believe that was when the rapid spiral into Emergent Christianity began for him. I wanted to throw that blasted book down a garbage disposal, much as I have many of the books he has brought home since then.

For him it was "love at first sight"; for me, it has been, and continues to be, a very gradual process.

I think it began, for me, when the director at the children's home we worked at introduced us to Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. I have kept that book as a treasure, having seen nothing like it in my years in the faith. I use it as a guide and a reference.

Then, when our first-born, Gordon, was just a baby and I began mapping out every moment of his future and deciding how parenting was supposed to be done, no questions asked. . . I stumbled first upon homeschooling. Many of the children's home staff homeschooled their own kids, and I think that was what originally drew me to the concept.

Jason tells me homeschooling is very "post-modern," and I just take him at his word on that one.

Once I decided on homeschooling, I began searching the internet for anything and everything I could find on the topic. One can never be to lackadaisical when it comes to their child's education; 2 months into child-rearing is a perfect time to begin planning.

In my searches over the next few years, I came across an amazing number of Catholic homeschool moms. I was so impressed with how they seemed to weave their faith into every minute of the day and every day of the week and every week of the year. It surprised me, really.

Having been raised in a Baptist home and educated in a Baptist school, I thought Catholics were, well, wrong. I thought they went to church on Easter and Christmas, told all their sins to a priest once a year and then went out and crawled up cement steps on their bare knees so they could still get into heaven, and then spent the rest of the year "living in sin." That was what I was taught, more or less.

And here these women were, praying alone and with their families at least three times a day, going to church several times a week, celebrating and having so much fun with their faith on all these holidays that I'd either never heard of or lacked full appreciation for.

I wished so badly I could be Catholic, so I could celebrate the liturgical year, burn candles when I prayed, and read the writings of the saints without shame and guilt. I very seriously considered converting for about a year, but settled myself on the idea that I could, in fact, do all these things and more, without converting.

I was brought to this realization when we visited Brian McLaren's church. The way they did communion was so beautiful and liturgical. I realized that I didn't have to be Catholic to appreciate liturgical practices.

Since then it has just been a matter of slowly exposing myself to all the books and chit-chat my dear husband brings into the house. Again, some of the books and ideas grate my nerves to no end. But some of them grab my heart and mind - they make sense - and they make all my preconceived misgivings about post-modernity and the Emergent Church seem like the severe over-exagerations that I now am beginning to believe they really are.

So, WHY "Emergent Christian" Homeschool?

I want my Christian faith to envelope every moment of my life and my kids' lives.
I want that faith to be deep and to touch every part of our beings - every sense, every feeling, every idea.
I want that faith to color the way we see others: those we love, those we dislike, those we agree with, those we disagree with, those that are like us, those that are so very different from who we are. I want it to color our vision of all people with love - unconditional, selfless love.
I want that unconditional, selfless love to seep out of our lives and fill our time with service to others in both big and small ways.
And, to be quite honest, the Emergent Church just seems to be doing all this.
Plus, my husband is leading our family into this, and I do still believe in letting the husband be the spiritual head of the house. . . so, I follow.
Lastly, while grappling with my feelings about this whole Emergent movement, I've searched ravenously for an Emergent Christian homeschool blog; and I just can't find one. Google searches lead me only to negative thoughts about the Emergent Church, and that just does me no good right now. So, I'm starting my own. Maybe some other Emergent Christian homeschooler will find me, and we can take heart in the fact that there are at least two of us out there.