Browning Raises Education Challenge
Episcopal News Service. December 3, 1987 [87235]
PRINCETON, N.J. (DPS, Dec. 3) -- Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning, in his message from the chair to Executive Council on Nov. 17, painted in broad strokes the role he has come to envision Christian education playing in enabling the mission of the Church. Browning made it clear that he was not content to fall back on old ideas about Christian education: "Christian education is more than printed curriculum, creative and imaginative aids, or the process and techniques of leadership training. The bottom line of Christian education is not pedagogical, it is ethical..." The Presiding Bishop measures the effectiveness of Christian Education at all levels by its ability to equip people to meet the ethical dilemmas of everyday life.
Browning told the Council that his thinking about Christian education has been informed both by the work of his Task Force on Christian Education and by his own encounters with the Church in mission. He put forward specific goals and context for Christian education in the Episcopal Church:
- Christian education in the Episcopal Church must enable every person to participate in the saving mission of the Church itself.
- Christian education in the Episcopal Church must empower every person to be a missionary and evangelist.
- Christian education in the Episcopal Church must encourage every person to assume the task of renewing the social order.
- Christian education in the Episcopal Church must challenge every person, in response to the Baptismal Covenant, to penetrate and sanctify the world of industry, education, finance, politics and the arts and sciences.
In his remarks, Browning tackled head-on the charge made by critics within and outside the Episcopal Church that today's Episcopalians are "biblically and theologically illiterate." Although he concedes that the charge may be to some extent justified, his vision for Christian education offers no magic wand. "Until we are awakened to the Word and its implications," Browning said, "we shall stumble about as a people with amnesia; as a people with no vision and no direction." He went on to say that he could "envision an education process with the necessary resources to nourish, expand, and support the faithful of all ages through a lifelong program of action reflection, study, prayers, meditation and common worship. Total education for total ministry."
In the Presiding Bishop's vision of the Church's mission, he sees the enablement of mission imperatives interwoven with the process of education and learning:
- Every congregation must be challenged to discern into what mission God is calling it.
- Every congregation must be challenged to identify the specific resources needed to carry out the ministries implied in the mission.
- Every Episcopalian must be challenged to be a missionary and an evangelist.
- Every leader in this Church must be challenged to be an educator. And every educator must be challenge to be a leader.
- Our educators must be challenged to provide specific resources to support the teaching our Anglican heritage and traditions, as well as the role and mission of our Anglican Communion today.
- Our educators must be challenged to accumulate our shared symbols, and the shared information that the symbols represent, so that we can communicate effectively with one another and with our partners in our global communion.
As he asked the Council to join with him in the planning, discernment, and enablement process that will lead to a major education proposal to General Convention in Detroit, Browning summed up the totality of the vision for Christian education he and his Task Force have shared:
"Christian education does not exist in a vacuum. The mission imperatives will provide form, direction and integration of our educational ministries with all the other activities of our Church."