Description
Encouraging the Development of Faith in God
John R Bradley, 30 March 1993
A heated debate is in progress in the world of education which has far-reaching implications for the
way that people understand faith in God. This paper is an attempt by a preacher who is not a
teacher to listen and learn from that debate and explore those implications.
Meanwhile, the study of how faith grows has seen some remarkable developments in the last
twenty years, particularly the faith development theory of James W. Fowler and the work of William
J. Abraham on evangelism as initiation into the kingdom of God.
Two theories of education
We begin with the political minefield of the nature and purpose of education. It is only in the latter
part of the twentieth century that education has been of such interest to the body politic. The
reasons for this are not hard to see. For the first time, developments in the means of production
have created unemployment on a large scale which cannot be resolved by emigration, as in the
past. There is nowhere left to emigrate to. A good education, despite the large number of
unemployed graduates, is still seen as the key to becoming one of the privileged 'in-work' rather
than the marginalised 'out-of-work'. At the same time, voters have become more aware of their
power to make political leaders accountable. Schooling is a sizeable part of the budget funded by
tax revenues. Parents have a clearer idea of what for them constitutes 'value for money' in their
children's schooling than in most other areas of public spending. Many teachers and
educationalists complain that those parents' ideas which are taken up by politicians are no more
than prejudices built on the mistakes of those adults' own schooling. The battle lines seem to be
drawn around two theories of what education is for, the instrumental and the developmental.
The instrumental theory has a rich history going back at least to Plato and the Greeks. It seeks to
initiate the child into certain kinds or forms of knowledge, to develop the 'man-in-the-making'. In its
present form it seeks to give the child the skills they will need in order to gain employment and be
socially useful citizens.
The basic skills are considered to be reading, writing and arithmetic. A child who has mastered
them will be able to acquire any other skill or Information they may need: a child who fails to
master them at an appropriate age will be so handicapped that no other ability or competence can
compensate. It is therefore of the utmost Importance to channel the child's attention towards
acquiring the basic skills. Other activities may have educational value but they must not be allowed
to divert attention and resources from the primary task.
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