In an address to Catholic university professors in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI stated, "Education is integral to the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good News. First and foremost every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth. This relationship elicits a desire to grow in the knowledge and understanding of Christ and his teaching. In this way those who meet him are drawn by the very power of the Gospel to lead a new life characterized by all that is beautiful, good, and true; a life of Christian witness nurtured and strengthened within the community of our Lord’s disciples, the Church." While addressed to faculty of the Catholic University of America, these words---a with little adaptation---could be addressed to the Church as a whole.
Education is vital to the ongoing life of the Church. It is not tangential to its mission; it is central. Further, education is not only about building up the Church for its own sake, but also about bringing the good news to the world. Anything less than this is a failure of nerve as we move into the future. We need to resist the urge to turn inward at a time when the Church in North America is in rapid decline.
During their exile in Babylon, it was tempting for Jews to turn inward, to focus on their own suffering and distress. In such a circumstance, it was alluring to think that God's mission was limited to bringing the exiles back from Babylon to Jerusalem. It was almost irresistible to become self-focused and to interpret God's work in the world only in terms of rescuing the descendants of Abraham and Sarah .
To this temptation, the great prophet of the exile addressed these powerful words, "It is too small a thing that you should be my"light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth" (Isaiah 49:6). There's a direct line from the words of the prophet to the mission of Jesus and the Church in the world.
The reduction of the Church's educational mission to serve only the Church's internal needs is "too small a thing." It is unworthy of the abundance of God's grace in the world; it is a truncated and impoverished mission. It is defeatist!
The word of God to the Jewish exiles was that they needed to move beyond such a self-focused and self-interested concern for their own deliverance; God has bigger plans in the works. Similarly, Christian education that serves only the needs of the Church is too self-focused and self-interested; the Church's vision for education needs to match God's vision for the world, not be limited by our own paltry vision.
In a typical week, I teach classes of cadets who are preparing for ordination and commissioning as officers of The Salvation Army and classes of students who are working to improve their lives through university education. In these classes I have many Christian students whose faith will be strengthened by what they learn about Christianity and the Bible. But I also have a significant number of students who have no faith background or who come from other faiths. Where else will they be exposed to Christian teaching and Christian faith? In churches and Salvation Army corps? Not likely! Most of these students will never darken the door of a Christian church or a Salvation Army corps. Christian university education can be a way to meet them.
Just this past week, in a class on "Christianity and the Marginalized," a student observed that in her previous education she never would have heard about Christian involvement in various movements for the improvement of society. She would never have known of the positive impact of Christian teaching upon the anti-slavery movement, equal opportunity for women, poverty, and social reform. It was news to her that the Church had played any role at all in these various areas.
It is too small a thing to neglect the mission of Christian university education to serve the wider community and to focus only on the internal needs of the Church. It is too small a thing for us to become self-focused, serving only the needs of the organization. That would be a betrayal of our mission, a betrayal of the Gospel that is always outward looking, seeking new horizons for the salvation of the world. It would be a betrayal of the mission of God. It would be a farce.
Let's not settle for an educational mission that is too small for the Gospel or for the God whom we serve.
Yes - we have too easily viewed education as preparation for mission rather than an expression of mission itself. [Ray Harris]