Posterity

I woke up this morning to this beautiful sight, which reminded me again of some very memorable words:

Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity. We can do no less. Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into sleep knows what posterity is. Posterity is the world to come—the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility.

William Jefferson Clinton

42nd President of The United States

First Inaugural Address

21 January, A.D. 1993

One need not agree with any of the former President's policy initiatives to see the wisdom of these words. I remember listening to that address from a small radio at the desk in my cubicle at Michigan's State Capitol. I was twenty-three, outside the church, newly without a father, and about to enter the most devastating months of my life. At that time I only knew I was without a father. I was only beginning to suffer the consequences of having rejected God the Father . . .

Yet these words have stuck with me all these years. When I woke up and saw my son's beautiful little face I quoted the paragraph from memory, though I remember little else of the President's speech, or of any other inaugural speech for that matter.

Such is the power of words, of language, of truth.

I am a Christian husband and father, and I am a pastor. These words of the former President, in my family and parish context, remind me of the "sacred responsibility" that I have to prepare my children, and the children of my parish, to live faithfully in this world and be watchful for the world to come.

Which brings me to related thoughts on the "Rethinking Confirmation" theme. . .

Dr. Susan Wise Bauer concluded her 2009 Midwest Home School Conference lecture, "The Joy of Classical Education in the Home," with a summary of her goals for a full classical education at home (K-12). We want a twelfth-grader, she said, to:

1. be able to get information and evaluate it;
2. know what he is good at;
3. speak and write with some authority.

What we are attempting to do by means of the classical model is teach our children to think, to be life-long learners. Indeed, Dr. Bauer repeated in many and various ways, that learning is a life-long project.

As I adapt this to the parish education context (In my case that is a context that does NOT include any level of parochial school.), and think of the little boy pictured above, we want to send him off to college with:

1. a comprehensive Biblical literacy. That is, he has gathered the information. He knows his way around the Scriptures. For example, he knows Israel's history and the life of Jesus and the early church (He will know this even better if, under the classical model, he has been taught this with a chronological world history.); and

2. a comprehensive doctrinal literacy. That is, he has evaluated the Biblical "data" and knows how, in Christ, all these events work together. He will, for example, not be bewildered by the near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 because he will understand how this, in a sense, foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ. For another example, he will see and understand the connection between the story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50, the life of Jesus, and the summary of God's teaching on providence in Romans 8.28: "God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose." Above all, he will understand the central teaching of the Scripture; namely, that man is accounted "righteous" before God purely and solely because of the work of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God. Thus, with a comprehensive Biblical and doctrinal literacy, he will live with

3. a functional Christian worldview. That is, he understands that his Baptism united him with the death and resurrection of Jesus, gave him the forgiveness of sin and eternal salvation, and that his life is as one who (though still having a sinful nature) is also a participant in the divine nature (A Christian is, this side of heaven, simultaneously saint and sinner.). He is to live as one liberated from the burden of perfection, freed to pursue the further development of his God-given gifts knowing that these are to be used in service of God and neighbor in a life of daily contrition and repentance. Moreover, one with a functional Christian worldview will articulate these truths in word and deed; that is, he understands the challenges of modern life, speaks (and writes with varying competency) Christian truth in the midst of this life, and acts in God-honoring ways in defense of the faith and in love toward their neighbor.

Notice that number 3 uses functional rather than comprehensive. This is because we are talking about eighteen-year-olds here. The goal of Christian catechesis is, indeed, to instill a comprehensive Christian worldview, but such a worldview is formed only through years of daily prayer, Biblical reflection, and testing of the faith. I am still experimenting with the English words that best correspond to these three ideas (I lean toward foundational, functional, and comprehensive.) and the classical education model for the Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric stages, but I am confident that with the active participation of the family and the parish an eighteen-year-old can have a comprehensive Biblical and doctrinal literacy (#s 1&2); I am confident, therefore, that any family and parish thusly committed to these goals will have prepared their children for adult life with a functional Christian worldview (#3) and the tools to see that worldview mature over time.

This is why I am pondering the possibility of either using The Rite of Confirmation as a culminatory rite for the senior year or commencing a new ritual that would celebrate the maturity of faith that diligent participation in catechetical life all through the schoool years suggests. If Confirmation were moved to the senior year it would mean the necessary separation of Confirmation and First Communion. In that case a Rite for First Communion (Lutheran Service Book has this) would replace Confirmation. I think that I would prefer this nomenclature, but there may be issues wth the broader church that mitigate against it (See the debate over the age for First Communion at Four and Twenty + Blackbirds http://four-and-twenty-something.blogspot.com/ on related issues.). I think that if we are to move to this type of paradigm that the church might want to offer some extra incentive, like a scholarship, for those who dedicate themselves to further catechesis and Christian service throughout high school.

God-willing, I shall reflect more on this in the coming days.