Wide-Awake in God’s World: Bible Engagement for Teenage Spiritual Formation in a Culture of Expressive Individualism

Wide-Awake in God’s World

Bible Engagement for Teenage Spiritual Formation in a Culture of Expressive Individualism

Graham D. Stanton

Wide-Awake in God’s World

Bible Engagement for Teenage Spiritual Formation in a Culture of Expressive Individualism

Australian College of Theology Monograph Series

Copyright © 2020 Graham D. Stanton. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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The substance of this book was first submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, in 2017.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are the author’s own translation.

A large number of the original sources quoted use gender exclusive language, as was customary at the time of writing. This includes writings from Maxine Greene, who cannot be accused of being intentionally anti-feminist in her use of language. Gendered language in original sources has been preserved and will not be specified at each occurrence by the use of sic.

Chapters 3 and 7 contain material first published as:

Graham D. Stanton. The Glory of Kings: Dialogical Practices of Bible Engagement with Teenagers in a Culture of Expressive Individualism. St. Mark’s Review 240 (2017) 34–53.

Chapters 3, 6 and 9 contain material first published as:

Helen Blier and Graham D. Stanton. Wide-Awakeness in the World: Exploring Pedagogical Dimensions of Youth Ministry in Conversation with Maxine Greene. Journal of Youth and Theology, 17.1 (2018) 3–20.

Chapter 9 contains material first published as:

Graham D. Stanton. Making Sense of the World: Re-Imagining Bible Engagement in Christian Education with Teenagers in Light of Maxine Greene’s Aesthetic Pedagogy. In Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches, edited by Johannes M. Luetz, Tony Dowden and Beverley Norsworthy, 135–43. Singapore: Springer Nature, 2018.

For Juliet, Rosie, and Jono, my three favorite Australian young people: may you be wide-awake to all that God has prepared for you in his world as you continue to grow to understand this life in company with Jesus.

The glory of God is to conceal a matter. The glory of kings is to search a matter out Proverbs 25:2

Illustrations

Figure

1

: Taxonomy of uses of the imagination in relation to the Bible |

164

Table of Contents

Title PAge

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Chapter 1: Expressive Individualism, Bible Engagement, and Maxine Greene

Chapter 2: Practical Theology, Correlative Conversation, and Practice Frameworks

Part I: Maxine Greene’s Aesthetic Pedagogy

Chapter 3: Education in and for Freedom

Chapter 4: Engaging the Arts

Chapter 5: Releasing the Imagination

Part II: Dialogical Youth Ministry

Chapter 6: Freedom, Authority, and the Martyr’s Gift

Chapter 7: The Bible, Dialogue, and the Disciplined Imagination

Chapter 8: Imagination, Bible Engagement, and Being Known by God

Chapter 9: A Practice Framework for Dialogical Youth Ministry

Bibliography

Preface

This book is a reprint of my doctoral thesis completed at the University of Queensland in 2017. I am grateful to support from the Australian College of Theology to enable this publication and am privileged to join the list of researchers and scholars who are part of this monograph series. The text published here is largely unchanged from the thesis submission but for two significant differences. First, a reworked introduction attempts to express some of the origins of this project and demonstrate the core concern for how we might more effectively engage Australian young people with the Bible. Second, the name I have given to the approach to youth ministry proposed in this project is dialogical youth ministry. The original thesis named this approach Christian aesthetic pedagogy for youth ministry. So why the change?

Christian aesthetic pedagogy was so named to connect with Maxine Greene’s educational philosophy that she named as aesthetic pedagogy. The problem with this formulation is that it suggests an approach to youth ministry that engages either with the creative arts or with a theology of beauty. Though both the arts and the beauty of the gospel find a comfortable home within this approach to youth ministry, neither are really the heart of the proposal. Dialogical youth ministry is not quite right either—there is more to the proposal than dialogue. Yet the philosophy, purpose, and practice of dialogue are all central to what I have to offer here, so dialogical youth ministry seems the better option.

The acknowledgements made at the conclusion of the thesis-writing marathon are re-printed in what follows. For this publication I am particularly grateful to Mike Southon for valuable help in writing clever computer code to save hours of time converting in-line referencing to footnotes, and to Gina Denholm for careful editing and gracious teaching of English grammar.

Acknowledgements

Much of the doctoral journey is a solitary pursuit. Particularly as a full-time student, when the majority of my time was spent in the company of books and my computer screen, I often felt like I was pursuing a kind of monastic retreat from the world—albeit the kind of monasticism that included using various cafes, libraries, and airport lounges as temporary offices. However, despite the large amount of time spent on my own over the past three-and-a-half years, I have been very conscious of, and most grateful to God for, an extended support team in the wings.

For the genesis of the theological reflection on youth ministry pursued in these pages, I am indebted to my colleagues at Youthworks College, Sydney. Our conversations around the table in a crowded faculty office spurred one another on to think long and hard about ministry to children and young people that was theologically sound, gospel centered, missionally engaged, developmentally appropriate, and culturally relevant. Many preliminary thoughts about the Bible and the imagination arose out of conversations with Andy Stirrup, and I am confident that this thesis would have been much improved if I was still able to call upon him as a conversation partner. I am indebted to Tom Frame for generously sparing an afternoon in front of a whiteboard in Canberra in 2013 to bring some order to my inchoate thoughts and to Michael Jensen for helping to frame the project in its early stages.

As the project developed, I received invaluable feedback from various readers, particularly from Kaye Chalwell, whose enthusiasm for this work encouraged me to persevere through those times when I was convinced that I did not have anything very interesting to offer. I am grateful to colleagues in the International Association for the Study of Youth Ministry for the opportunity to present my emerging research at the international and Australasian conferences and to receive careful and considered responses. In particular I am grateful to Helen Blier and David White for the opportunity to share in a dialogical space of mutual concern in presenting at the 2017 IASYM conference in Sydney. Thanks go also to my research colleagues in the practical theology program at the University of Queensland, Dave Benson, Helen Dick, Jan-Albert van den Berg, Michelle Cook, Peter Lockhart, and Sarah Nicholl. Thanks for the robust discussion at each colloquium and for the lively conversation over burgers, pizza, and beers in the St. Lucia sun.

Among my academic colleagues, my thanks go chiefly to my companions Rowan Lewis and Chris Ryan. Whenever this Anglican, Baptist, and Catholic walked into a bar it was far from the start of a bad joke, but rather a time of intellectual challenge, emotional support, and spiritual encouragement. This thesis is stronger because of your input (thanks Rowan for the idea that led to imagining an aesthetic youth ministry; thanks Chris for making sure I understood Charles Taylor correctly). More significantly, my life is the richer for having met you both and having had the privilege of sharing the academic journey with you.

To my academic advisors, Aaron Ghiloni and Neil Pembroke, your advice and encouragement have been invaluable. I have heard many horror stories of PhD supervision gone bad but have no such stories of my own to share. Neil, your rapid response, detailed reading, and constant encouragement has shaped me as a researcher and practical theologian as much as shaping this thesis. It has been a privilege to work with you over these past years and I look forward to continuing to engage in theological reflection on Christian life and ministry with you in the future.

The freedom to complete this research full time was made possible through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship, and the provision of consulting work with the Anglican Education Commission, Sydney, the Mathew Hale Public Library, Brisbane, and a new role at Ridley College, Melbourne. I have spent many hours traversing the south-east coast of this great continent and am grateful for the opportunity to share in such a variety of ministry settings while completing this research. In particular, I am grateful for the generous hospitality of Penny and Alex Crawford, who gave me a second home in the Ridley Room at Bennison Street on my frequent visits to Brisbane.

Alongside the intellectual challenge, greater still is the psychological/spiritual one. In such regard I am deeply grateful to God for the steadfast support of my prayer team: Reg and Dorothy Piper, Rob Stewart, Helen Elley, Jane Stanton-Gillan, Chris Trethewy, and Ron Webb. The knowledge of your prayers for me through the highs and lows of the past few years has been an enormous encouragement, the value of which I will only come to fully appreciate in the kingdom to come. To Chris Hudson and Ron Irving, I am grateful for Tuesday night beers, for the reminder that PhD or no PhD I’m just a regular boof-head, and for the fellowship of brothers. Thanks also to the church communities I’ve had the privilege of sharing in during this journey—to Steve Dinning and the people at Austinmer Anglican, you will always be our family’s home, and thanks for the desk under the stairs; to James Hornby and the people at St. Jude’s in Parkville, thanks for giving us a new home in Melbourne. To my wife Katy, thanks for allowing me to ditch work for a few years and become a student again, and for being my constant companion, most loyal supporter, and lead encourager.

Above my desk for the past few years has been a list of quotations with this from Paul Griffiths at the head: To forget to pray before we study is to forget to acknowledge what it is that we are doing, and, very likely, thereby to tend toward the curious desire for mastery rather than the studious desire for intimacy.¹ I have been very conscious that the ideas contained in this thesis have come as a gracious gift of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—whether through a moment of inspiration, or providentially stumbling upon a crucial text, or rediscovering a forgotten thought. Through the discipline of this study, I have known the gracious gift of intimacy with God. This thesis is a reality by God’s grace, and for God’s glory.

1

. Griffiths, Religious Reading,

116

.

Abbreviations

AYM Aesthetic Youth Ministry

BE Bible Engagement

BG Greene, Maxine. Variations on a Blue Guitar: The Lincoln Center Institute lectures on Aesthetic Education. New York, NY: Teachers College, 2001.

DF Greene, Maxine. The Dialectic of Freedom. New York, NY: Teachers College, 1988.

DYM Dialogical Youth Ministry

LL Greene, Maxine. Landscapes of Learning. New York, NY: Teachers College, 1978.

RI Greene, Maxine. Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1995.

TS Greene, Maxine. Teacher as Stranger: Educational Philosophy for the Modern Age. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1973.

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The ACT Monograph Series, generously supported by the Board of Directors of the Australian College of Theology, provides a forum for publishing quality research theses and studies by its graduates and affiliated college staff in the broad fields of Biblical Studies, Christian Thought and History, and Practical Theology with Wipf and Stock Publishers of Eugene, Oregon. The ACT selects the best of its doctoral and research masters theses as well as monographs that offer the academic community, scholars, church leaders and the wider community uniquely Australian and New Zealand perspectives on significant research topics and topics of current debate. The ACT also provides opportunity for contributors beyond its graduates and affiliated college staff to publish monographs which support the mission and values of the ACT.

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1

Expressive Individualism, Bible Engagement, and Maxine Greene

Suppose you are leading a discussion with a group of young people about Jesus’ parable of the two sons from Luke 15:11–31. While most of the group are not particularly engaged in the conversation, one young man is eagerly reporting how helpful this Bible passage has been in his own life. My little brother and I fight a lot, mostly because I think he has got life easy and gets away with a whole lot more than I ever did. But this story is such a great reminder to me that older brothers should not be jealous of younger brothers.¹

How will you respond? Will you rejoice that a young person has not only read the Bible, but has even chosen to use the Bible to shape the way he lives? Here is a young man who has chosen to position himself under the authority of the biblical story. In some way he has allowed Jesus’ words to direct his experience. In a world of biblical illiteracy and wayward morality, surely this is a bright star in an otherwise darkened sky of teenage Bible engagement!

And yet, perhaps there is also the unsettling feeling (or maybe even the overwhelming conviction) that this young man’s personal concerns have overshadowed the voice of the text? Read in the context of the whole chapter, to conclude that the parable of the lost son is about how older brothers should relate to their younger siblings is so far wide of the mark that it is quite shocking to experienced readers of the Gospels. The story of the two sons does not stand alone but comes as the climax of one parable in three parts (the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son).² This three-fold story is addressed to those who are grumbling at Jesus’ reception and dining with sinners. While it could be argued that this young person has made a choice to position himself under the authority of the biblical story, at least in the sense that the story is used to direct his experience, one could also argue that his personal concerns have overshadowed the voice of the text.

Meanwhile, the other members of the group remain disengaged. Perhaps it is because they have already heard the answer to what this story is about. Or maybe they know from experience that you are about to tell them the answer before the study is done. Either way, reading the parable of the good Samaritan again is not offering them any sense of personal risk or adventure. As a result, Christian faith holds little appeal because the great truths have already been revealed, and it is simply a matter of devoting oneself to what is already known.³

So, which will we choose? Must we give away commitment to objective authority and any sense of an orthodox reading of the biblical text in order to promote teenage engagement? Or do we sacrifice teenage engagement because of a commitment to theological truth?

The central concern of this book is to find a way to affirm both authority and freedom—to propose practices of Bible engagement in youth ministry that can effectively promote Christian spiritual formation in a culture of expressive individualism. In pursuit of that end, this study will correlate insights drawn from the aesthetic pedagogy of educational philosopher Maxine Greene with key themes of Christian theology in order to propose a practice framework for what I am calling a dialogical youth ministry (DYM). The chapters that follow will argue that DYM promotes the freedom of young people by inviting them to explore and construct meaning and to imagine how things could be otherwise for them and their world. DYM affirms the authority of Scripture by inviting Christian leaders to be present as people of conviction in dialogue with teenagers as together they think about the world, offering the gospel of Jesus as a possibility for meaning-making.

The journey towards DYM engages with three main areas of discourse. First, this study engages with literature that seeks to help the Christian church face the challenge of finding approaches to spiritual formation that engage appropriately with the contemporary culture of expressive individualism. Second, because of the specific focus on practices of transformative Bible engagement, the study engages with theological reflection on the relationship between the Bible and the imagination in light of a conservative evangelical theology of biblical authority. Third, the study engages with the critical analysis of the educational philosophy of Maxine Greene by educationalists and religious educators.

Spiritual Formation and Expressive Individualism

Expressive individualism is a highly significant—very likely the most significant—factor in the cultural milieu in which Australian young people engage with spirituality. First identified as the dominant culture of the United States of America in the twentieth century, expressive individualism has become a feature of modern secular culture across the Western world. Characterized by individual choice and the absence of external authorities,⁴ in expressive individualism each individual must discover their true self by looking inward to their own thoughts and feelings. Then, having identified the authentic self, each individual must be free to choose how they will express who they really are. The only limits on which path you choose is that it causes no harm to others. Above all, discovering and expressing the true self must not be controlled or conformed to any form of external authority:

each one of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and . . . it is important to find and live out one’s own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from outside, by society, or the previous generation, or religious or political authority.⁵

While expressivism of this kind is not entirely new, having seeds in eighteenth-century Romanticism, what is new is that this kind of self-orientation seems to have become a mass phenomenon.⁶ The notion of being true to oneself has become the highest calling of the modern identity.

The dominant form of religion in the age of authenticity therefore is one that is marked by a spirituality of quest,⁷ where each individual has the right and responsibility to explore what might be their own path to wholeness and spiritual depth. The focus is on the individual and on his/her experience. Spirituality must speak to this experience.⁸ The quest is not simply to make my own decision about religious beliefs, but to make a choice that best expresses my own spiritual path as I understand it. The only directive is to let everyone follow his/her own path of spiritual inspiration. Don’t be led off yours by the allegations that it doesn’t fit with some orthodoxy.⁹ Being true to oneself in the spiritual realm makes conforming to an external framework both unnecessary and incomprehensible.

Choice, rejection of external authority, and personal quest, key features of expressive individualism, are all evident in the spirituality of Australian young people.¹⁰ The suggestion that young Australians might like to pursue their spiritual interests in a church context results in them becoming defensive, even hostile.¹¹ From the perspective of expressive individualism, a major obstacle to young Australians’ engagement with the church is that there seems to be no room in Christianity for personal quest. Conventional forms of Christianity seem not to be interested in personal risk or adventure, because the great truths have already been revealed, and it is simply a matter of devoting oneself to what is already known.¹²

Conservative Christian commentators have been better at offering critiques of the quest for authenticity than at proposing productive avenues of collaboration. Certainly, there are serious deficiencies in the modern quest for individual freedom, especially as they relate to young people:

A major problem with the current view of personal freedom is that it leaves people trapped in their own limited interior world of subjective feelings, impressions and limited perspectives . . . For adolescents and young adults in particular, they are left without any larger and more objective framework of meaning with which to make sense of their questions and to navigate a very confusing world. Coupled with prosperity and consumerism and the growth of a culture of entitlement and exaggerated individualism, they are set upon a journey that will lead them into a lifestyle of destructive self-interest.¹³

The problem is that the appeal to authenticity can be just an excuse for questionable behavior. If I do something that is inconsiderate of others or even harmful to myself, I can just claim I am being true to myself . . . What if my self is selfish? After all, the abusive spouse, the dishonest friend, the greedy workaholic, and the malicious gossip can all claim to be true to themselves when they behave in character. The problem with being true to yourself is that too often the self abuses the privilege.¹⁴

However, at the very least, Christian youth ministry in Australia needs to grapple with expressive individualism simply because this is the culture in which we find ourselves. As Taylor recognizes, those who claim to possess some wisdom have an obligation to explain it persuasively, starting from where their interlocutor is, so here.¹⁵

Others call for the church to make radical changes to its beliefs and practices in order to engage more productively with the culture of expressivism. For the church to be capable of dialoguing with the present social situation, it needs to sacrifice its own claims to exclusive truth and begin to insist on the plurality and diversity of the living spirit.¹⁶ Since the keynote of contemporary spirituality is experience, if the church fails to offer a pathway of experience, [it] can expect to decline or diminish.¹⁷ Perhaps there is an opening for constructive dialogue with secular affirmations of the spiritual as a task of freedom and personal discovery.¹⁸

However, these proposals to embrace expressivism often require the church to loosen its grip on traditional doctrines of the church community and the authority of the Bible and Christian tradition. This emphasis on freedom in new approaches to spiritual formation is an oft-times chaotic push toward an existential end, which by definition leads to less structure, more randomness, and a narrower focus on individuals.¹⁹ Leading Christian Educator Robert Pazmiño argues that this over-emphasis on freedom stems from a focus in spiritual formation on individual persons, to the exclusion of the content of Christian faith and the context of Christian community.²⁰

Reformed theology stands against the spirituality of quest in its understanding of spirituality in theocentric rather than anthropocentric terms. Christian spirituality is not describing the activity or nurture of the human spirit but is the study of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.²¹ The gospel is not about an innate spirituality awaiting release, but about the divine Spirit acting upon a person from without.²² Conservative evangelical youth ministries reflect this theocentric theology of spiritual formation in expressing the goal of spiritual maturity expressed as the formation of mature disciples equipped to participate in disciple-making ministries themselves.²³ The aim of Christian youth ministry is to see young people progress further along in a journey from no knowledge of the gospel through conversion to Christian maturity.²⁴

The driving burden of this study is to articulate a way of pursuing Bible engagement in Christian youth ministry that is appropriate to the contemporary expressivist mindset evident among young people. But rather than facing a choice between engaging with the culture of expressive individualism or holding to conservative theology of the inspiration and authority of the Bible, my aim is to propose revised practices of Bible engagement that will enable the church to give young people freedom to choose their own spiritual path without relinquishing the church’s commitment to biblical authority.

The tension between expressive individualism and the authoritative content of the Christian tradition is an expression of the freedom-authority dialectic in spirituality, biblical hermeneutics, and Christian identity. The relationship between freedom and authority has been a familiar theme in philosophy,²⁵ particularly in political philosophy,²⁶ theology,²⁷ education,²⁸ and religious education.²⁹ This study sets out to explore how the pedagogical valuing of freedom can be affirmed without undermining the theological commitment to authority; or, vice versa, how authority can be asserted (in an authoritative text, an authoritative interpretive paradigm, an authoritative meaning to life) without removing or diminishing personal freedom. While this discussion will engage to some extent with the philosophical, theological, and educational discourse, as a project in practical theology, my overriding concern is with the pedagogical practices that might be pursued by adult mentors of young people that will promote the freedom of young people while preserving the authority of the Bible.

Bible Engagement and Imagination

Bible Engagement (BE) is a coverall term used by a number of Christian researchers and agencies across the world to refer to how people read and interact with the Bible.³⁰ Notwithstanding the variety of readings that different theological traditions bring to the Bible and the variety of beliefs and practices justified from appeal to it, engaging with the Bible remains a defining feature of Christian faith.³¹ The normative authority of the Bible over all matters of Christian faith and practice is a particular feature of the evangelical movement,³² and especially of the Reformed tradition.³³ In Australian Evangelical Anglicanism, the pietistic practice of personal Bible reading combined with the Reformed emphasis on exegetical preaching promotes BE as the central practice of Christian spiritual formation.³⁴

However, emphasis on biblical authority and greater frequency of BE is not sufficient to promote personal transformation. Australian young people generally display low levels of Bible engagement and biblical literacy.³⁵ An exception to these trends are young people in Reformed evangelical youth ministries who display relatively frequent patterns of BE. Yet, researchers report that while these young people may know the biblical stories and make some connections between characters in the stories and their own situations, most are unable to draw that information together into a vision of what faith is all about and how that faith should be lived.³⁶ Biblical literacy seems present, but a biblically shaped imagination appears lacking. That practices of BE among teenagers are not necessarily producing deep transformation is also suggested by the oft-reported statistics on the drop-off of young adults from the church.³⁷ While many authors call for a change in the way churches conduct ministry to emerging adults, others point to inadequate discipleship in the teenage years as the root of the problem. Though there are many factors that influence the retention of young adults in Christian faith, developing and pursuing more effective practices of BE for spiritual formation of teenagers is a critical challenge for the church.³⁸

On the other hand, transformative engagement with the Bible does not always recognize biblical authority. Recall the example given in the introduction: reading the parable of the prodigal son as a reminder that older brothers should not be jealous of younger brothers!³⁹ might suggest that there is a degree of imaginative BE at play, but to the detriment of the authority of the text.⁴⁰

Imagination in BE, it seems, promotes freedom but at the expense of authority. Ricoeur suggests the combination of Bible and imagination to be baffling and even paradoxical, since the imagination is regarded as a faculty of free invention, and