The Church as University in Miniature:
Co-operative Ventures in Adult Education

By
The Reverend Doctor Thomas P Williamsen
Oxford Roundtable
Oxford University
August 2004

Introduction
When I was thirteen, my family moved to Berlin, Germany. It was 1960 and my father was a chaplain in the U.S. Army. The political situation was tense in Berlin. The Cold War had heated up and the divided city of Berlin personified the strained relationship between the Soviet East and the European and American West. At that time Otto Dibelius was the Lutheran Bishop of Berlin (Brandenburg). Having already stood up to Hitler he now defied the Russians. His home was in West Berlin. The Cathedral, the church of the Bishop, was in East Berlin. Every Sunday, Dibelius, a diminutive man of some 5’2”, would walk, with his entourage, from his home, through the Brandenburg Gate to his church. He refused to stop at the U.S. check point, the East German checkpoint or the Russian checkpoint. In fact, he defied them to stop him. “I am bishop of all Berlin and as such have free access to all my people,” he remonstrated.

I remember walking that route with Dibelius and my dad. It was the first time I had ever thought about the relationship between church and state. In the Second World War, Germany had a state church. While there was a resistance movement (led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoeller and others), the Lutheran Church for the most part acquiesced to Hitler and supported him, albeit unwillingly, from the pulpit. In 1960, in East Germany, the church was deemed an enemy of the state because of its power to unite people and begin a resistance movement.

In both Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union, the state tried to control what the church taught. In other places at other times, the church had tried to control what the state did and what the state taught. A prime example of that was pre-revolutionary France. The church had so much power that the common person could not distinguish between the church and state. Consequently in France, the Revolution was aimed at both church and state. After the Revolution, monasteries were closed, churches were used for alternative purposes and the clergy were persona-non-grata. For instance, Sainte Chapelle, arguably the most beautiful place of worship in the world, was turned into a granary. The chapel was built in the thirteenth century by King Louis IX to house the crown of thorns. Except for some spindly pillars, the church is completely encircled by stained glass. It was, however, the king’s chapel and as such a visible reminder of the oppression of the poor by both church and state.
After my experience in Berlin I was beset with thoughts about the relationship between church and state in both the political and educational arenas. I have finally come to the conclusion that in the relationship between church and state there needs to be both tension and balance. Tension, because the church has wider and more global concerns than the state. Balance, because many citizens belong to the church and church members are also citizens.

When I was in elementary school in New York City, I would leave school and go to church where my Dad would teach religion. Many students went. This was release time. Parents signed a waiver that allowed their children to be taught religion off school property. It was deemed constitutional in a 1952 court case because no public money was used.

Things have changed since 1952 and in America the bond between church and state in public education has weakened. In fact a few public school teachers have lost their jobs because they had a Bible on their desk. School officials said that having a Bible in sight applied subtle pressure to the students to be Christian. On the other hand, in adult education there is a growing kinship between the two. All three of the parishes I have served reflect co-operative ventures by church, government and the private sector.

A Few Thoughts on the Nature of Education
While Soren Kierkegaard was a young theology student he worked one summer in a small Danish fishing village. Kierkegaard had suffered many losses and was by nature melancholy and introspective. As he was pondering his future he finally came to the conclusion, in good existential manner, that he must find truth for himself. “I must find that idea for which I am willing to live and die.”
It seems to me that part of education’s task is precisely that – to help each student find his or her own truth. Shakespeare only had it partially correct. “To be or not to be” is only a portion of the question. We need more than just “to be.” We need “to be” with meaning and purpose. A well rounded education helps each person find and define their life’s meaning and purpose. This is where church and state run into trouble because it is here that they would seem to be at cross purposes. It is also why a state church can never be true to its calling. Allow me to elaborate.

The church’s concerns, by definition, have to be global in perspective. God is a citizen of every country. As a Lutheran, I am very aware that of the eighty million Lutherans worldwide only twelve million are American. The Lutheran church in the United States always has to keep the welfare of the other sixty-eight million Lutherans in mind as well as God’s other children, Christian and non-Christian. In short the church must first be about the business discerning and doing God’s will for ultimately the church must answer to God.

By contrast the government must first be attentive to the well-being of the citizenry. Only secondarily is the government concerned with global needs. These two conflicting pursuits cause a great deal of contention and strife. The reason a state church is not desirable is because a state church tends to be primarily focused on the needs of the state and neglects their global responsibilities.
In my present congregation we have found common ground with many governmental agencies in the realm of education. Nonetheless we feel free to criticize the government and call on our members to approach certain issues from a religious and global perspective.

Secondarily, contemporary public education seems to be more interested in schooling than in education the way Kierkegaard would define it. Public schools, because of funding problems etc. are teaching students only to pass state sponsored standardized tests. While it is easy to understand that each child needs a certain competency in reading, writing and arithmetic, many parents and churches are concerned that it is to the neglect of their moral education. Students are not always able to discern that idea for which they are willing to live and die. As a result of this narrow public focus, churches need to broaden the scope of their educational programming both to children and adults. The rest of this paper will deal with adult education.

The Christ Lutheran Church Experiment
I was at Christ Lutheran Church in Baltimore, Maryland from 1970 to 1974. While I was there we built an apartment building for low income elderly and a nursing home with Title 1 money (1971) from the Federal government, grants from both state and city governments, local business and gifts from individual church members. Both facilities were owned by Christ Lutheran Church and operated jointly by the church in conjunction with the University of Maryland Hospital. Both facilities had a strong emphasis on education: medical, fiscal, religious and regular continuing education. These classes and programs were taught and run by physicians, nurses, certified public accounts, clergy, and other professionals. from both the private sector and governmental agencies. At the time it served as a model program for interagency co-operation and was the first project in the rebuilding of the Inner Harbor in Baltimore.

Augustana Lutheran Church
My second parish, Augustana Lutheran Church (1974-1981), was also in Baltimore. Health care was a major issue in that neighborhood. Few doctors had offices in the area even though medical problems were great. We decided that one of the best things we as a church could do was to open a health center. We received one million dollars from the Department of Health Education and Welfare, one million dollars from the city and one million dollars from the Robert Wood-Johnson Foundation (a private not-for-profit organization) to set up a holistic health center focusing on the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of individuals. The health center not only treated the ill but ran a large preventative medicine program that taught personal hygiene, healthy parenting skills, nutrition, and the like. Programs for the treatment of addiction and child abuse were co-sponsored by the church and health center, along with their obvious educational components.
The mayor of Baltimore at that time was William Donald Schaeffer, who later became governor of Maryland. He told me at the opening of the health center that “if the church stopped doing social ministry and running educational programs, the city could not pick up the slack.”
In addition to the health center, Augustana housed a public school for eighty mentally handicapped students. While the church had no formal role, other than landlord, I sang with the children, played ball and otherwise interacted with them. I had no religious role with them but they all knew that I was clergy and that they were in a church with all its Christian art and symbols.
In both parishes, church and government had a close working association and related to each other in a spirit of co-operation, toiling for the common good.

Adult Education at Gloria Dei! Lutheran Church (1981- present)
The Renaissance man is dead. True liberal arts education (language, history, philosophy, science, music, and art) is on the endangered species list. It always amazes me what well-educated people do not know. I have come to the conclusion that the church can provide opportunity and space for adults to broaden their base of knowledge. It can, in fact, be a university in miniature. By university, I mean that the church can offer courses in a variety of disciplines in an environment that fosters the free exchange of ideas.

The curriculum can be as vast as the imagination allows. Obviously there are some things that the church must take primary responsibility in teaching. They include: Biblical exegesis, doctrine, prayer and other similar subjects. This, however, leaves an extensive list of courses in which both church and state have vested interests.

Mental Health Issues
One thing with which most Americans agree, is that the mental health care system in the United States is broken. People not only need better mental health care and insurance, they need better education. At Gloria Dei! we have a parish counselor. She is a trained therapist with over twenty years of experience. She has good relationships with other therapists in both the public and private sectors. Besides doing counseling, she has taught or arranged for others, from either the nearby community college or governmental agency, to teach classes on grief and loss, depression and mental illness, effective and compassionate listening, strengthening marriages, becoming a better parent, teaching the faith to children, death and dying, dealing with an aged parent and many others. Gloria Dei! has helped fund, and our parish counselor has worked closely with, the local hospice organization in running two bereavement camps for children.

Classes on personal growth have been especially well attended. These have included the following: The Myers-Briggs personality type, the Enneagram (another kind of personality typology), emotional intelligence and conflict management. Obviously, both religious and state-run and funded organizations are interested in the mental health of people.

Physical Health Concerns
Gloria Dei! also has a parish nurse who, among other things, is an educational resource for both individuals and people in a classroom setting. Classes have included: cardiovascular health, dealing with breast cancer, helping the cancer patient, support groups for spouses of seriously depressed persons, nutrition, and blood pressure monitoring. It has been interesting to discover the paucity of classes offered by state-run organizations in the area of physical health, especially in the suburbs.

Ethics
Probably one of the most controversial and potentially contentious classes is in the field of ethics. We have explored issues such as abortion, the just war theory, homosexuality, euthanasia, the human genome project, AIDS, social welfare, racism and others. Imagine the passion these topics must have engendered. Many of these issues needed experts to co-lead the group discussion. To keep a lid on the discussion, we laid down a few ground rules:
1. Everyone has the right to his or her own opinion
2. Be able to state the opposing view point fairly and accurately
3. No name calling
4. Remember we are here to learn, discuss, and grow, not to change anyone’s mind.
Some of these discussions have cost us members, but it seems to me that these areas of study are essential in equipping people to live with some integrity in the world. The church should be the safest place to share controversial ideas. God can handle them. We should be able to as well.

Public Use of Church Facilities
Where I live, outside Annapolis, Maryland, meeting space is at a premium. We have space that goes unused much of the time. Generally the space is offered free of charge for various functions: community meetings, scouts, recitals and concerts. The members of the Naval Academy Band use our facility quite often. While this is not strictly a class, it is in keeping with the theme of university and offering a wide variety of opportunities to learn and grow.

Public Forums with Elected Leaders
We at Gloria Dei! have long felt that in a suburban bedroom community the church can act as kind of center and gathering place. This past year we have asked public officials to come to the church, meet with their constituency and discuss some of the major issues facing the Senate and the House of Delegates. I play no role except to offer the space and publicize the meeting. The events have been well attended and greatly appreciated.

Public School Use
A number of years ago the middle school (grade 6-8) went on split sessions. The first session ended at noon. Many of the young people had no safe place to go. The school, with the Department of Recreation and Parks, developed a program of providing after school supervision for youngsters with no adult at home. They used the facilities at Gloria Dei! to house that program. About seventy-five young people took advantage of it. In addition, this co-operative venture created a great deal of good will in the community.

World Religions
Christianity is obviously not the only world religion. We have had classes on World Religion and have had the local rabbi come and teach about Judaism. In addition, we were privileged to hear a survivor of one of Hitler’s concentration camps speak to us. After 9/11 we invited a member of the Moslem community from Afghanistan to share her perspective with us. She was both informative and challenging. What an eye-opening experience that was for people.

Church and State in Slovakia
Gloria Dei! is privileged to have a sister church in Slovakia. When Slovakia was behind the Iron Curtain the church and those who served as clergy were considered enemies of the state. No repairs could be made to the exterior of the church and anyone who was confirmed in the church had to leave school. Clergy were harassed and sometimes threatened and sometimes killed. Christians in the west should get down and kiss the feet of those brave souls who kept the church alive during the soviet occupation.

After the Velvet Revolution the public schools made some startling changes. First they stopped teaching Russian. Second local clergy were asked to teach religion to those of their denomination. Slovakia is for the most part Roman Catholic. The second largest denomination is the Lutheran Church. The last time I was in Slovakia the pastor of our sister church, Pastor Ivan Novemesky, asked me to come to the middle school where he would teach two classes of young Lutherans. About thirty-five students attended each class. The first thing that the pastor did was to ask two young people to pray. I have never heard more fervent prayers. Then they sang—loudly. Pastor Novemesky did a Bible Study from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. The class lasted fifty minutes and ended with student prayer and song. I was stunned both by the students’ attentiveness and that religion was being taught in the school. Right now the church in Slovakia enjoys an almost idyllic relationship with local governments. It will be interesting to watch this relationship develop over the years. Can they sustain these good feelings when there is disagreement? Will either the church or state try to dominate the other? Are there lessons to be learned from Slovakia? Time will tell. The only thing I know is that right now things are working well.

Ende
The church and state have much to offer each other. There are so many concerns that are held in common that the possibilities for co-operation are endless. Indeed there is a great deal of joint effort taking place everyday. Both can benefit from the other.

It seems to me that one of the keys to strengthening the relationship is to understand and agree upon what behavior is appropriate when they are in shared settings. This is especially true for the church. Too often churches try to impose their own idea of what is right and wrong on schools and school boards. Too often some churches have been arrogant in dealing with other Christians. Too often clergy have tried to convert someone at an inappropriate time and in an inappropriate place. We need to respect each others’ rules when we are in each others’ spaces.