to touch inward springs...

As a school-teacher for some years before becoming a stay at home father (and, now for seven years, a DRE) I always loved the days leading up to a new school year. I still do. It is, of course, a time of sometimes stressful preparation. But it is also a time to examine and to reflect on and absorb into our souls the nature of this work. Our really outstanding Lifespan Religious Education Committee met earlier this week and we started with a chalice lighting using these words of William Ellery Channing:

"The great end in religious instruction, whether in the Sunday-school or family, is, not to stamp our minds irresistibly on the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs; not to burden the memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought;"

Blessings

Sunday school...

East of Midnight recently examined various aspects of Sunday School in a provocative series of posts that garnered several responses.  Among many other issues raised was the wisdom of using Sophia Lyon Fahs in seminary religious education courses.  I also question that as she is far to modern for me!
   William Greenleaf Eliot (1811–1887), born in New Bedford, became a Unitarian Minister and founder of various educational and civic institutions in St. Louis (he was also the grandfather of T.S. Eliot.)  The next couple of days will include excerpts of his,

"Early Religious Education Considered as the Divinely Appointed Way to the Regenerate Life" 

In fact, for today, the title alone is sufficient!

Blessings

solemn and grave looks...

I was somewhat surprised by this from "The Christian Teacher's Manuel" 1829.  The article is "OBSERVATIONS ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF PERMITTING CHILDREN TO ATTEND PUBLIC WORSHIP WITH ADULTS," which is explanation enough for the question. What do you think?

"Now to us we confess, the practise of sending children to church, seems not only injudicious but somewhat cruel. Judging from our own childhood we know of no place less congenial to the buoyant spirits and active frame of that period of life, than the church. There the child must sit erect—compose his features into solemn and grave looks, without receiving anything as a reward for his torture. The hymns do not suit the taste of the nursery—the language and the ideas of the prayers, are above his comprehension—and the sermon is all Greek—and very dull Greek to him. This .is no exaggeration, we believe it may be said without fear of contradiction, that not one tenth part of the services of the sanctuary, are at all intelligible to children. This indeed is acknowledged by many parents, who nevertheless urge the propriety of sending their children to church, that they may acquire an habitual regard for the place, and for sacred things. We do not like such reasoning. A habit of attending church, or any other religious observance, is the last habit we would wish a child to form. We fear to run the slightest risk of making religion a thing to be done at a certain time and in a certain way. We fear very much, any practice which has the remotest tendency to overestimate forms and festivals, time and places. And does not the experience of almost every one prove that these fears are far from groundless ? Can we not, do we not refer much of our mere formal attendance upon public worship, to the fact that such an attendance has become a matter of course; a thing done without the feelings being at all interested in it ? Why then entail the same coldness upon our children ? Why educate them in the same outward acknowledgment of, and inward indifference to public worship ? We repeat, we believe it a melancholy truth, that the bodily and mental comfort of children are sacrificed in many instances, to a mere outside display of reverence for the Sabbath. Of this practice of making the holy day a weary and gloomy one to the young, were it consistent with our present design, we could adduce much evidence. We have no doubt of the sincerity of those who rule children with the rod on Sundays—and tax their memories with unintelligible lessons, and torment them into the anxious wish that " the sun would go down" and relieve them from Sabbath thraldom—but it is the sincerity of superstition. But we must remember that it is no more possible and proper to rule the free-born thoughts of the child than of the man; both must be led by the light chain of reason."

Blessings

the noblest work...

We will honor our Lifespan Religious Education Committee today in church. William Ellery Channing said of Sunday School teachers, "The noblest work on earth is to act with an elevating power on a human spirit."

Thank you religious educators, fellow DRE's, all teachers and parents. It is indeed the noblest work.

Blessings

Unitarian a most pregnant word...

Yesterday, Sylvester Judd wrote in favor of "indoctrinating" our sabbath school children with the pure love of Christ. Today, the great Unity of God...

"But while love is chief, it is only one of our doctrines. There is the great and goodly doctrine of the Divine Unity. This primarily means that God is one, that he has no equal. The teacher will show the child how the Bible asserts, and nature in all its manifestations confirms, this doctrine. But the doctrine of the Divine Unity means much more than this ; it expresses other ideas besides the nature of God. Unity, Unitarianism, a most pregnant word, if you but consider its scope and amplitude...This word Unitarian is a glorious word, of a vast and most comprehensive scope. " Unite " is from the same primitive, and the famous word " Atonement" is descended from the same stock. Christ prays that we all may be one together with him, and with God,—unitarianized, atoned. God would gather all things together in one, unitarianize all things. This universal communion is in our minds when we speak of Unitarianism; and such a consummation is what we desire when we plead for the indoctrination of the children.

Unitarianism, as we define it, as we would have it taught, as it lies in the Bible, is no shallow thing, no half-way system, no cold dogma, no barren statement. It is life and spirit. It is like Christ, its great representative, unto us wisdom and sanctification and redemption. It rises, indeed, into the sublimest region of speculation ; but it stays not there, it condescends to our very feet, it grapples with the whole of our being, the full circle of time and eternity. There is the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, taught, illustrated, beaming like the sun, all through Scripture. There is the doctrine of universal brotherhood,—rare, precious, august doctrine of Christianity. There is the doctrine of the dignity, the worth of human nature, upon which the churches round about, the preaching round about, a thousand influences round about, are perpetually crowding, but which is to be reasserted and defended, and inculcated over and over again ; a doctrine often declared and always implied in Scripture; implied in every law God has given, in every dispensation he has made ; implied alike in cursing and beatitude, alike in penalty and reward ; implied in the very fact of sin, in the possibilities of guilt, in all the heinousness of transgression, as well as in the beauty of holiness and the joys of virtue."

Blessings

Love is the doctrine...

An unabashed call for the teaching of Unitarian Doctrine in our Sabbath schools from Sylvester Judd...

"There is another point on which I wish to offer some suggestions. It is involved in the question whether you should teach the children doctrines. On the supposition that we have a right idea of the term, I answer, Yes, by all means. Let the children be indoctrinated. Let no child ever leave the Church Sunday school without being thoroughly informed in all the doctrines of the Church. But what do we mean by doctrines ? As has been already indicated, I mean the simple Gospel of the Son of God,— all that of which the Gospel is at once the basis, essence, and repository. I mean Christian doctrines, that is, doctrines which Christ taught. I mean evangelical doctrines, that is, Gospel doctrines. I do not mean what ordinarily passes under the name of doctrines. I mean Gospel doctrine, which is simply Gospel teaching.

But do I mean Unitarian doctrine? I mean precisely that. And what is Unitarian doctrine ? It is what Christ taught. Unitarian doctrines are Christian doctrines, evangelical doctrines, Christ's doctrines, — no more, no less. But does the question still return, What are Unitarian doctrines ? The answer itself resolves into a question. Did Christ teach anything ? Did he utter any important truth ? Did he announce any great principle ? If he did, that is Unitarian doctrine. Did Christ leave any enduring impressions on the minds of his immediate disciples? Did John, or Peter, or Martha, or Mary, derive any appreciable, interesting, or solemn lessons or ideas from him? These are Unitarian doctrines. Did they believe in anything, or have faith in anything? That is our belief, our faith. You are, then, to teach what Christ taught, and that is Unitarianism. I speak advisedly. It is the beauty and the boast of Unitarianism, that it takes off those folds which have been wrapped about the Gospel, exhumes the sacred page, and lets us have it in its original and undiminished glory.

But what is the great Unitarian doctrine ? You mean, rather, what is the great doctrine of Christ, and of Christianity ? or what did Christ most emphatically, elaborately, and plainly teach ? The Apostle seems to furnish an answer to this question in our text. " Now the end of the commandment," he says, " is love, out of a pure heart." He cautions Timothy as to what should not be taught, and then impresses on him what is the sum and substance of all teaching and doctrine, namely, love out of a pure heart. This is the end of the commandment, the grand consummation of the whole matter; all vitality, all essentiality, all fundamentalness of doctrine and belief, is contained in this. This is the fulfilling of the law; and Paul elsewhere seems to speak as if he did not know there was any other commandment.

To return now to the question, Shall we teach the children doctrines? I reply, Yes! But what are doctrines ? I have given you specimens of what are called doctrines, what are everywhere taught for such, and professedly believed. But they are what the Apostle calls fables and genealogies, what Christ calls traditions of men. They are not the genuine Christian doctrines; they are not Unitarian doctrines. I have just given an instance of a Unitarian doctrine, — love out of a pure heart; and this doctrine I want teachers in the Sunday school to teach. I want you to teach it as one of the great, cardinal doctrines of the Unitarian Church, to teach it as a most vital, searching, paramount doctrine of Christianity. You should inculcate it as that* on which all the law and prophets hang, for the voice of inspiration tells us it is so. The faithful teacher will tell the children how love to God and love to man fulfils the law; he will show chapter and verse in the Bible where it is said, " He that loveth is born of God " ; he will impress upon their minds how this love is greater than faith or hope, greater than all conceivable things ; he will demonstrate to them what are the fruits and evidences of it; he will instruct them in the methods of preserving, strengthening, and increasing this chiefest of Christian graces. In a word, he will indoctrinate them in this doctrine. He will so thoroughly indoctrinate them that they will all know the essential element and groundwork of their faith ; and should any one ask them what they believe, or what is a doctrine of the Unitarian Church, they will at once and comprehensively reply, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself."

Blessings.

Cutting up the meat...

Sunday School has always been a part of my life. My parents taught Sunday School in our Lutheran Church when it was their turn, and my mother has been more than once its Superintendent. I helped with Vacation Bible School while in college and since have taught Lutheran, Episcopal and Methodist Sunday School on occasion. My first experience of Unitarian Sunday School was as a DRE and it was an interesting transition to go from Bible based (albeit moderate) curricula to the diverse and far-flung interests of a UU based program. What should or can a non-creedal, often non-theistic church school teach? The question is not new. Here is Sylvester Judd on the Sabbath School:

"CHARGE THEM THAT THEY TEACH NO OTHER DOCTRINE, NEITHER GIVE HEED TO FABLES AND ENDLESS GENEALOGIES, WHICH MINISTER QUESTIONS, RATHER THAN GODLY EDIFYING, WHICH IS IN FAITH. NOW THE END OF THE COMMANDMENT IS CHARITY[love] Out Of A Pure Heart.— 1 Timothy i. 3 - 5.

In addressing myself to the teachers of our Sunday school, let me premise that I consider it a department of the Church, coming fully within the precinct of Church influences and authority ; it is a sort of seed-bed and nursery of the Church. One of its leading objects is to prepare the children to be mature Christians, true Churchmen and Church- women. I hold that all who enter the Sunday school do, to a certain degree, commit themselves to the Church, and to a Christian life.

The office of the Sunday-school teacher is a kind of delegated pastorate. He deals with the undergraduates of religion, he takes the spiritual meat which is served to the people generally, and, so to say, cuts it up for the little ones. The great thing to be taught is Christianity; not in the artificial shapes that abound on every hand, but just as we find it in the simple text of Scripture. And when I say Christianity, I mean, of course, among other things, moral duties.

The Gospel is not a simple book to us. It is wrapped like a mummy in countless folds of ignorance and mistake, and its fresh, beautiful life is smothered and well nigh lost. Ages of misinterpretation obscure it. A superstitious light gleams about it. We approach it under the disadvantage of all the wrong education we have received from our childhood to this day. I could sometimes wish that the Sunday-school teacher, as well as others, might for a moment forget that he had ever seen the Gospel of Jesus, so that he might go to it as a new book, a new history, that he might thus experience all the freshness and beauty of its revelations, and with unbiased mind and childlike heart endeavor to appropriate its great truths. It is of the highest importance that we should understand the New Testament, for the reason that to us it is the sole rule of faith and guide of life. We reject the commonly received creeds and formulas of churches about us, and betake ourselves to the simple word of God, in which all-important rules of duty and forms of faith are simply expressed."

To a degree, we are blessed in our modern Unitarian Sunday schools that the teachings of the Bible (and scripture of all faiths) are often new to our students and can be presented in all their "freshness and beauty." Tomorrow, "the question whether you should teach the children doctrines." Blessings