To be or not to be

… educated, that is!
by Graeme Smith

O

ne of my deepest concerns regarding many within The Salvation Army of the Western world is an obsession with education. Actually, it is in particular the education of Salvation Army officers that seems to be the real issue for me. My concern is that there seems to be a growing number who believe that degree-educated candidates are the only ones who will eventually make good officers.

My problem with this is that I can’t understand why!

You see, I look around The Salvation Army world and see countless uneducated officers leading corps, centres, divisions - maybe even territories - and have to ask whether their service is any less competent because of not having gained a degree. I look at some of my erstwhile colleagues in Latvia and wonder why their loving, dedicated and incredibly successful service should be discounted because they don’t hold any certificates.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that in some areas of the world being an officer is more about being a CEO of a small business than it is being an evangelist and pastor. However, to demand education for this reason just reinforces a situation that is probably detracting from the preaching of the Gospel.

Let’s look at our history - and for this, I’ll get personal! My great, great grandfather, Commissioner Thomas Estill, was an uneducated jet worker from Whitby in England. His training as an officer, and that of his wife Mary Ann, amounted to standing in front of William Booth and preaching a sermon. The Founder felt both of their sermons to be sufficiently Spirit-filled and sent them off to command corps in the embryonic Salvation Army. They went on to lead commands and territories on five continents, and all of the territories flourished!

Now, I’m not for one moment suggesting that we should return to a training like they experienced, but why is it that their ministry is invalidated because of their lack of education?

My suspicion is that we are again concentrating on the wrong things. Education is not a bad thing in itself, but it is a bad thing if the lack of it is a barrier to serving God in the calling He has chosen for us. By rejecting anyone without an education, we could be sending out one of two messages:

• God only chooses to call the educated.
• We are better at deciding who should be called than He is.

Maybe my wariness of this issue is my own, once scarce, education. Having come out of school with only the most basic qualifications, I was well into my 30’s before I could boast of having a diploma to my name. Maybe it’s not even that, but instead it is six years in Latvia watching a generation of young people striving to earn not only a Bachelor’s degree, but also a Master’s, because without them they were seen to have no worth to society!

One wise friend of mine has said this: “A certificate on the wall, without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is just a piece of paper.” In our sophisticated Western society that values success above everything else, maybe we need to put the emphasis on the Spirit’s indwelling, rather than a piece of paper!

Writer: After six years lay ministry in Latvia, Graeme Smith now finds himself as an Envoy running a corps in the UK. He’s married to Zoe and they have two wonderful daughters, Sian (3) and Abigail who was born in April. Passionate about mission and discipleship, he is aiming to enter training in 2008.

11 Comments to To be or not to be

1. The art, as I see it from a Jewish perspective, is to create a culture which values good theological education and a reflective faith and missional practice as a norm, and as part of the development of every believer, but which does not invalidate people’s ministry because some happen to have less than others. The valuing of a culture of learning needs to be embedded in a context which seeks out and values the gift each learning disabled person, each mentally ill person, brings in their uniqueness to our community. As a Jewish believer I can personally attest to the damage it does to incoming converts when a community is ignorant of both cross-cultural issues and church history, and the consequences of replacement theology, for example. It has reached a point where many Messianic Jews recommend to new Jewish believers they don’t join the gentile churches but remain in synagogues - how sad is this? A few years back I also watched the struggles of an Asian family trying to integrate into a white UK congregation where even the minister made no real effort to understand their background or where they were coming from in their thinking. He didn’t think it necessary - all he needed was to read his Bible and preach the word. It left me as an observer in anguish, and the converts wide open to alienation and rejection of the church.

   What I’ve sat and listened to regarding refusal to try to understand cross cultural issues and interfaith issues amongst poorly trained ministers simply beggars belief. A lot comes down to education and having a mind trained and able in theological reflection open to learning, aware of history, open to understanding others. A huge amount relies on our having a culture where it is normal to develop every individual in their giftedness and ministry throughout their lives, with people understanding they are in the process of continual learning in our rapidly changing context. To me this is key for the church’s adaptation to a continually changing world.

   If you think education is expensive,as they say, try ignorance -
Eleanor Burne-Jones on January 31st, 2008

2. The move toward “degrees” over the past 100 years has been universal across society — lawyers in the U.S. can no longer apprentice and then take the bar, they have to go to law school; hair braiders in many states can’t just open up shop, they have to go through a cosmetology course that has nothing to do with their proposed business in order to receive a license; when homeschooling first got going, many states proposed that parents would have to get an education degree before starting up with kindergarten….

   It is sad to see the Salvation Army is falling into the pattern of valuing that piece of paper. I really question the Railton School, where young people who a few generations ago would have been commissioned officers are instead steered into youth ministry. Are they being marginalized and infantalized or empowered?

   In the U.S., Robert Epstein wrote an interesting book on teens and the Institute of (for? I forget now) Justice takes on a lot of the certification battles in the states (their hot one right now is interior designers). I guess the underlying problem is demonstrating competence and trustworthiness — a piece of paper is so very reassuring if you are the one making the call on behalf of a large organization. It’s like a friend of mine said: “So many people have told me God has a plan for my life — but I wish they would tell me what it is!”
Catherine W on January 31st, 2008

3. We need both.

   True, education isn’t going to solve the Army’s problems. Without the Spirit, it is a loss. But our education should teach us that a lot of great theologians have said the same thing, not the least of which was John Wesley, who said “without love, all learning is but splendid ignorance.” He used uneducated people as his lay preachers, but he still expected them to read a tonne!

   As Spirit-filled people, we should view education as a way of testing our convictions against those that the Spirit has given to people down through the ages, and in various Christian traditions in the present. Since we have “one Spirit,” which has been active in God’s people throughout history, and is active in Christians all over the world right now, part of discerning the Spirit should be listening to what the Spirit has said to others, and is saying to others, through their reading of Scripture, their view of Christian tradition, and their experience (all measured against our best reading of Scripture, which should be furthered by the right kind of education).

   This means we need to understand education in a particular way, not as something which “puffs up” but as a way to deepen our Christian walk. And it should lead to greater humility, though unfortunately sometimes education leads to pride, in which case it is a failure (and in which case, it seems it is working against the Spirit).
James Pedlar on January 31st, 2008

4. Probably depends a lot on what is meant by “education.”

   My having a Ph.D. may well be a sign that I’m a slow learner. My Officer father, who envied my opportunity to spend years in school, was without doubt a wiser and in many ways a more learned man than I’ll ever be. In his view (and mine) God has designed us to be “disciples” (from “discere”, Latin for “to learn”) forever.
Jim Read on January 31st, 2008

5. Just to clarify, it’s not education per se that I am opposed to, but the fact that some seem to feel that all candidates should have been educated to college/university level before they are even considered for officership. This to me is intellectual elitism!

   Jim, I agree that the aim of all disciples is a life-long learning process. As soon as we start to think that we know all that is to be known about a God whose ways we are not supposed to understand then we need to take a reality check.
Graeme Smith on January 31st, 2008

6. It is about what kind of education. Why are academic qualifications shoehorned into the formation of officers? You have to ask what is driving this: the imperatives of mission or ecclesiastical respectability?

   Thanks for highlighting this Graeme.

   Leonard Ravenhill:
   “You can have 32 degrees and still be frozen.”
Matt Clifton on February 1st, 2008

7. Jim,

   I would be remiss if I did not respond to your post about education, and your comments about your father.

   When I was in the Training College (1952-53), cleaning the office shared by the sergeants, I remember over hearing them say the your Dad took it upon himself to add a new word to his vocabulary every day!

   There is no question but that Ed Read, was intellectually head and shoulders above any of his peers; yet a more humble person one could never meet, and the same could be said about your mother.

   When I resigned as an officer over the lack of the sacraments, and was working at the Vancouver Harbor Light, your Dad dropped in one morning to see me. He made no judgments about my leaving, nor made any attempt to convince me that I was “wrong, but instead strongly encouraged me to attend university.

   As a result, I ended up at Seattle Pacific, went on to Fuller, then to Emmanuel at the U of T, then to Princeton, and finally to Claremont and the U of S. California. It was a journey from conservative to neo-evangelicalism to radical liberalism – experiencing the whole theological spectrum, but still remaining an evangelical.

   I will be eternally grateful to your Dad for his non-judgmental acceptance, and his gracious advice, which consequently has enriched my life immeasurably, and opened doors to ministry that I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams.

   When I was the minister at Kingsview in Oshawa, a salvationist told me that your Mom had told him that she knew my officer-parents, and remembered me “when I was in a baby carriage”. I heard that she was soldiering at the Whitby Corps, so I went one Sunday evening, only to learn that she “just came out in the morning”. I now regret that I didn’t make an effort to locate her and either pay a visit, or at least make a telephone call.

   Grace and peace to you, in your important work at the Ethics Centre.
john sullivan on February 1st, 2008

8. I believe there was a strong desire expressed by the Booths that we provide training and education to all levels of our membership to enable them to be people of passion and discernment.

   Evangeline Booth wrote to Bramwell 1901: “The Training question has been on my mind for a long time…I am fully persuaded that if we can improve this branch of our work, one of the finest strokes for the bettering of the whole Territory will be accomplished.”

   William Booth writes in 1905 regarding the lack of effective training: “It is also another reason for losing a great many soldiers - especially does this apply to people with families. They say they want to take the young people where they can get some proper instruction in piety and for the battles of life … I am very much exercised about the piety of many of the soldiers also. They get very little to help them in the direction of deep spiritual things.”

   “Booth simply did not find the training of officers or soldiers sufficient to meet the needs of the world and his expanding Army, Therefore, he envisioned the establishment of a university where training would be given in four areas: evangelist work, missionary and medical work, social work,and departmental work. For Booth, this would include a broad educational training in what he called “the science of humanity.” Roger Green -
   Life and Ministry of William Booth.

   Training and education which empowers mission and ministry has always been at the heart of our movement.
Ian Swan on February 1st, 2008

9. My Utmost for His Highest? ;o)
gordon on February 1st, 2008

10. Ian, I think that one of the areas where we have gone adrift as a movement is in the area of educating our members. In my past the first time I was ever encouraged to deepen my faith through study of any sort was by John Gowans in the mid 90’s. Discipleship has not been our strong point for far too many years and in many places we are only just starting to rediscover this. Strangely though the same didn’t go for our musical ability as I can remember being encouraged loads of time to learn to play my cornet better!

    Gordon, I’ll take the bait! I fully agree, but is our utmost always about intellectualism, or is it doing our utmost in all areas of life?
Graeme Smith on February 2nd, 2008

11. Isn’t education being confounded with credentialism here, and intellectualism with scholarship?

    Employers, not just TSA tend to prefer people with credentials for positions of responsibility because a) they can. Underemployed, credentialed people abound in our society today.
    b) the more literate individuals are the more trainable they are and though it’s a weak correlate, educational attainment is the best approximation we have of literacy.

    But we all know that ministry is about more than “skills” (though they are important) so in a credential-focused church a large proportion of society (let alone those who have poverty as their only inheritance) doesn’t get someone they can identify with to minister to them.
Andrea614Regent on February 2nd, 2008

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