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CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AFTER POST-MODERNITY:

Shrewd as Serpents, Innocent as Doves, (part 1)
Dr Doug Blomberg Surveying the territory in Australia
For some time I have been reflecting on what parents want from schools-and on what schools should be prepared to offer them. An appealing promise might read: the highest standards of academic excellence in a caring Christian environment, committed to inculcating strong biblical values. My conviction is that if Christian schools are to be all that God would have them be, they need to be more than a commitment to this promise. They need to live up to their promise of being founded in the recognition that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord and wisdom go hand in hand, and I want us to think about what a school committed to wisdom would look like. This requires not just loving relationships within existing structures, but changes to the structure of schooling so that it too becomes more loving.
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Snakes in the grass? I cannot help but be intrigued by Jesus instruction to his disciples: I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves (Matt 10:16) NIV. Serpents generally get a bad press in Scripture. It strikes me as rather odd that Jesus sent his disciples out with this counsel. In our idiom, it is as if they were being advised to act like snakes in the grass. In Genesis we are told that the serpent is the most subtle of the creatures that God has made. There is nothing wrong with being subtle, tactful, sensitive. These are very positive qualities, ones that might be regarded as being at the heart of wisdom because wisdom is very much about being attuned to the times, sensitive to the circumstances, motivated by the moment. And the word translated as shrewd in the NIV is translated as wise in earlier versions. It derives from the Greek word phronesis, which for Aristotle was that

highly significant human capacity of practical reason or judgement. There is nothing wrong with being subtle, and there is nothing wrong with the serpent. It is a creature that God has made with just this very characteristic. But in these early pages of the Bible we get a crystal clear indication both of how everything that God made is good, and that everything that God has made can be used to serve the purposes of evil. The serpent, without the transparent integrity of the dove is crafty, but not wise. In classical mythology, the serpent was a symbol of prudence, wisdom and healing. In Scripture, it becomes a symbol of evil, an evil that Jesus will take upon himself on the cross, for he must be lifted up, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness: so too, evil is conquered, and the serpent becomes a symbol of salvation. Thus, Jesus counsels his disciples to be like the serpent in its wisdom: all things can be redeemed.
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And so, I choose the serpent (in tandem with the dove), as my epigraph. Dare we think that schooling for serpenthood is a legitimate aim for Christian schools after post-modernity?

Know your enemy: what is postmodernity? To understand the post-modern era, we have to understand the modernist period it is assumed to succeed. A trenchant and accessible critique of modernity is found in John Ralston Sauls Voltaires bastards: the dictatorship of reason in the West. In characterising modernity, Saul writes: Rational structures, moral beliefs and representative government have been confused as one in peoples minds. While structures reign supreme, mans sense of right and wrong is in frenzied confusion. None of this would have been possible had the people themselves not been seduced by the religion of reason. accepting that such things as expertise, administration and efficiency were irrefutable values. It is not Voltaire but his illegitimate children whom Saul holds in contempt, those who have despoiled what Voltaire bequeathed. Where Voltaire (for Saul) epitomised rationality in pursuit of moral ends, these children have exalted structure and methodology, rational planning and systems to the be-all and end-all of human behaviour, devoid of all attention to values other than these. There is no over-arching normative framework, no meta-narrative. Nowhere perhaps is this more evident than in the rise of the military Staff Officer. Last year my wife and I were privileged to visit Gallipoli, where the futility of fighting to an inflexible timetable was brought home powerfully. Soldiers who had gained the heights were either bombarded by their own artillery or waited in vain for the barrage to come, and then were forced back down into

the valleys. The General Staff was ensconced safely at sea, sheltered by an island, unable even to contemplate that responsiveness to the moment, that flexibility of execution that is necessary for a successful campaign. And nowhere is this more poignantly illustrated than in the words of Launcelot Kiggel, at a battlefield on the other side of Europe. Visiting the Passchendaele swamp after having sent 250,000 of his own men to their death in it, the shock of actually seeing what had seemed so rational on a map at headquarters was too much for him. He broke into tears and cried: God, God, did we really send men into that? (Saul, 200) The Staff Colleges had instilled knowledge into their graduates; these were knowledgeable, intelligent men. But what they lacked was what Aristotle called practical reason or judgement, and what Jesus called the wisdom or shrewdness of the snake. They lacked the ability to respond wisely to the needs of the moment, the exigencies of reality; they lacked the moral sense to withdraw their troops when the cost in human lives escalated to the incredible. Saul contends that no matter what modern organisation is examined, each is led by technocrats educated in the same mould, whether at Harvard or London Business Schools, or the cole Nationale dAdministration. These institutions and their copycats have overseen the severance of reason from history, from experience, from memory, and from a moral or values framework. What matters to them is the efficiency of the methodology. Thus Saul charges, educational systems have been designed to further this religion of reason, to reproduce and reinforce the values of the rational class. While involved in the Christian school community, we need to think globally and act locally. Modernity is so much part of the air that we breathe that we take it for granted. A waterfall starts with one drop and each journey begins with one step. The world seeks to mould us to its form. When I asked a group of Christian high school teachers why they were excited about
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their special emphasis program, in which three days had been dedicated to a study of the persecution of Christians around the world, with many outside speakers contributing, one replied that it was because it put students in touch with the real world. It put them in touch with pain and suffering, with the reality of human evil and the tenuousness of justice. It impassioned them to want to act to right wrongs. My question had to be, What does this say about the normal curriculum? For what does it profit a person to know the chronology of World War I battles if he loses his compassion?

For where knowledge is impersonal, even transpersonal-the same for all people in all places at all times-wisdom is personal and relational. Truth is not found in facts, but in Jesus Christ. It is in loving him as Lord and Saviour that truth resides. My contention is that the Age of Reason, far from being surpassed, has come to its peak in the period described as postmodern, in which scientific and technological manipulation of all of lifes processes, and the rational working of the markets iron hand promise heaven on earth. Rational calculation is severed from actual concrete historical events and from living, breathing people, who often must be sacrificed to the needs of the system or organisation. Rationality is disconnected from a normative framework, so that moral emptiness and values vacuum replace that purity of heart and transparent integrity that are to characterise the servant of God. Where Jesus counsels the wisdom of the serpent, there is reason; where he honours the innocence of the dove, there is nothingness.

Knowledge or wisdom? My argument is simple. It is that Christian schools must commit themselves to the nurture of wisdom rather than the development of knowledge. I believe a biblical wisdom paradigm will enable schools to help to form students of character, who will live life out of humble, biblically informed and Spirit-driven hearts, committed to combating the idols of our times. Such a pursuit of wisdom will enable this goal to be achieved not just for the favoured few, but for all the students entrusted to their care, no matter what their IQ. Knowledge is not wisdom. Knowledge, as conceived in our culture, is value-free, objective, universal, propositional, often abstract. It is religiously neutral. Wisdom is overtly and inextricably linked with questions of value, with everyday problems and personal decision-making. Wisdom is the realisation of value, in two senses of realisation: it is both hearing and doing the will of God, living faithfully before the face of the Lord in the daily-ness of life. Values are not only intellectual; they are ethical, social, economic, aesthetic, environmental, and concern justice, and above all, faith. Academic excellence is one legitimate aim of schools, but it must not be the overriding one. Christian schools are not to be in the knowledge business, but in unrelenting pursuit of wisdom.

The Great Seduction Saul claims that we have been seduced by the religion of reason: he recognises that idolatry is at work. But was this not indeed the Great Seduction in the beginning? Did not the serpent invite Adam and Eve to weigh things up for themselves, to consider the possibilities and to compute the risks, to take into their own hands and to decide for themselves whether or not it was better to possess the knowledge that was being denied to them rather than to accept the limits that God had set; whether to fear the Lord or to lean on their own understanding? The Lord had said to them that there are boundaries set about what humans may do, but our first parents trusted in what they assumed to be the infinite capacities of their intellects. Wisdom requires that all thinking be hedged around with biblical boundaries and infused with the dynamic of the Spirit.

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Schooling for wisdom The voice of wisdom Wisdom cries aloud in the street; in the markets she raises her voice; on the top of the walls she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks. he who listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of evil. (Pr 1:20-21, 33) In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom walks the streets of the city, raising her voice in the public square, openly competing with those who are hawking their own presumed goods. Her teaching is directed not only to private thoughts and personal behaviour, but applies to public affairs. Wisdom claims that she is fundamental to economic considerations and social justice. Wisdom then is not a matter of abstract, theoretical understanding, of knowledge for its own sake. Wisdom is for the living of life and living it abundantly. There is no better image than this for the Christian school to ponder in the education marketplace. Here, Wisdom is pictured as a woman moving freely in the world of men, amongst all the deal-making, bartering and bargaining, in the midst of the elders meting out justiceand often enough, injusticeat the gates of the city. A woman, unprotected and powerless, seemingly frail and fragile, but with the strength to challenge and indeed to rebuke the scoffers, simpletons, fools and frauds, who take refuge in the magic of their money and the power of their position, turning away from the fear of the LORD. Dwell on that image for a time. Think of the powers of the world, the principalities with whom we battle; think of the frail and fragile venture of Christian schooling, and take heart in the figure of Woman Wisdom. What does she have to offer in the face of male hegemony? What do we, who seek to incarnate wisdom, have to offer in the education marketplace? When the early Church was trying to find a way to make sense of the relationship between Jesus, the Son of God, and God the Father, it looked to the figure of wisdom in Proverbs 8 as exemplar.

When he said, "Let there be-" to the very underpinnings of the earth, I was God's very own protg. I was enjoying myself day after day, playing around all the time in front of his face, playing through the hemispheres of his earth, having fun with all of humanity.... So now, listen to me, you children -how happy it will be for those who walk along the way I give guidelines for all of you, listen obediently to the paideia [of truth and joy] so that you become men and women with understanding! (adapted from Seervelds translation) Here a distinctively biblical education is seen to be an education in joy before the face of the Lord. Created to glorify God and enjoy him forever, an education for joy in the Lord will involve a freedom and playfulness that is missing from bureaucratised organisations managed according to models of technical rationality. Joy is not frivolity, nor does it preclude diligence, sweat, tears and struggle. Still, an education for joy in the Lord is a provocative challenge to schooling as we confront it in our culture, where it is founded on the assumption that personal achievement guaranteeing material success is the desired outcome, where people are valued more for what they do than for who they are.

Schools: formation or information? In the marketplace wisdom cries aloud that the purpose of learning is not primarily the acquisition of knowledge but the formation of character. Knowledge does not yield wisdom; information does not guarantee formation. Schools talk of the disciplines; Christian schools speak about disciples. The former concern is subject-matter; the latter, subjection to the Master. The strength of the Christian school is that it is not neutral with respect to values, that it has a stake in the formation of character, in the forming of its students more and more daily in the image of their Redeemer, who is Wisdom incarnate.
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It proclaims from the rooftops the values of the gospel, that the goal is a life of service rather than success. They are schools that seek to embody a different model of excellence from that which is generally dominant in schooling. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control-are there any excellences greater than these?

assertively calling them to admit that all things belong to God.

Other voices The oldest girls school in Australia, St Catherines in Sydney, has as its motto, In Christo thesauri-a reference to Colossians 2:3, In [Christ] are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Yet sad to say, despite this noble sentiment and the best efforts of not a few of its believing teachers, the school is now virtually indistinguishable from its private school peers or its wealthier public school counterparts. The elite nongovernment schools (most of them like St Catherines having church origins and affiliations with not dissimilar noble sentiments) have done nothing to challenge the secularisation of schooling, instead attuning their curricula to the demands of University entrance. Far from providing alternative curricula, they have seen themselves as charged with teaching the prescribed curriculum more expertly than government schools. They have committed themselves to academic excellence above all else. Let us pray that we do not repeat this travesty in our schools which also dare to call themselves Christian. Another noble sentiment: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdoma phrase that resonates through the wisdom literature and underscores any biblical perspective on knowledge. We do what we do because we believe that any attempt to understand the world and our place in it is doomed from the outset if it does not practise the presence of God; if it does not acknowledge that everything has its necessary reference point in him, that when Jesus challenged his interlocutors to render unto Caesar what was Caesars and unto God what was Gods, he was not accepting a dichotomising of life but was playfully, ironically and nonetheless

The Post-modern battleground The high or post-modern mind is an individual mind, appropriating truth through inwardness and on its own. The clear and distinct ideas it pursues are abstract principles that will confer certainty in every situation-eventually, the one, allencompassing Theory of Everything. As Rodney Brooks, director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at M.I.T. recently said, If I had my own version of the elixir of life, it would be an equation. What we have are rational individuals, acting as isolates in the marketplace of ideas and ideals, which are like so many goods on display. I am not denigrating rationality which is a good gift of God to us as human beings. But our being consists comprehensively in our imaging God, not in our powers of reasoning. An idolatrous Reason decrees that there is in any area of life, one answer. If there is only one answer people can be readily tested as to whether theyve got it or not. If rational truths are individual possessions, learning them is an individualistic undertaking, and pretty soon competitive, in which case, as one advertisement has it, to come second is to be the first loser. This way lies arrogance. The winners take the spoils, and how spoiled they can be in the taking. Early last year I decided that I should watch an episode of Survivor II, to see what all the fuss was about. As you know, Survivor is one of that popular genre of so-called reality shows. At first blush, one might sneer at the thought that it represents reality. But on second thought, it becomes clear that such shows are so popular because they do reflect the world in which so many people live. They are mirrors of our culture. The snippet that caught my attention was after one tribe had yet again lost a challengeapparently, they had been losing all along. A young woman, distraught and in tears, confesses, I hate losing. I dont care what it
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is I lose, I just hate losing. Meanwhile, the other tribe is exalting in its victory, with one man so elated that he cannot wait for the opportunity to rip the arms off his enemies, or even to suck out and swallow their eyeballs. Of course, he was hamming it up for the cameras, but there was nonetheless an edge of realism to his hyperbole. It is taken for grantedthere have to be winners, and for there to be winners, there have to be losers. Nowhere is this more macabre than when a tribe has to vote one of its members off the show: it seems, if I understand it, that this is a reward for that tribes victory, in the midst of which someone still needs to be sacrificed. In the end, there can be only one survivor. Again, let us think not only how damaging this game of reality is for the losersthink of the damage it does to the winners, in schools as well. There are the tamer game shows, -Sale of the Century and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and more recently in a turn for the worst, The Weakest Link and Shafted, f or examplebut here too we see, as comedy if not as tragedy, something of the stark reality of postmodernity. Knowledge is bits and pieces, chunks of information, and the reward for its acquisition is calculated in dollar terms. This does not seem strange, for we live in a world which conceives everything as packageable commodities, even educational outcomes. The bottom line becomes the only line that matters. Everything is one-dimensional. Not only are we, in C.S. Lewis words, men without chests-we are now reduced to a hip-pocket nerve. Schools are in the knowledge business, the education industry. Along with universities they are embracing corporate

models as their preferred pattern of operation, being places where knowledge is packaged for sale. The postmodern world is individualistic; the new creation in Christ is communal, individuals being members one of another. When God says, Let us make man in our own image, he is not using the royal plural but he is in communion with himself, three persons in one. When he makes man in his own image, male and female he creates them. We are persons in relationship. The postmodern world sees competition-between people and ideas, businesses and nations on a so-called level playing field-as normative; the kingdom of God is a cooperative venture oriented to shalom. When Jesus disciples compete for the place of highest honour, Jesus reminds them of their proper place. If arrogance is one of the few assured outcomes of our cultures present system of education, schooling for wisdom is schooling for humility. If rationality is not embedded in an ethos of service, it is merely self-serving. If it is not permeated by biblical revelation, subjected to the authority of the Word of God, it is idolatrous. (To be continued)

This paper was first presented at a teachers conference in Western Australia early 2002 Dr Doug Blomberg has been lecturing for many years at the National Institute for Christian Education in Sydney. He has written for Philosophia Reformata. Towards the end of 2002 Doug will start teaching at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto.

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