Google Catholicism
When my pastor was new to our parish, we decided to co-teach a series during Advent, on the Gospel of Mark. I suggested he go first, because I had never seen him teach, and didn't know what he expected as far as co-teaching went. After that first session, I remember saying to him, "our teaching syles are... very different." He chuckled, and said "styles, ha." I think he thought that there was only one way to teach, and I thought that for a long time, too.
Leading Alpha (after 20-something years of ministry) taught me about not teaching. In Alpha, we forbid our small group leaders from teaching. We coach them to, when a guest asks a question, turn and say "oh wow, that's such a great question. Does anyone else wonder about that?" It's the hardest thing to teach people. Adults, especially, who volunteer at church expect themselves to be able to answer questions, to be able to dole out sage wisdom whenever the opportunity arises.
When my pastor was getting ready to teach people how to be on Alpha team in Spanish, I remember telling him about this. He said "I don't understand." I told him that the teaching happens in the video, the job of the host is to be just that- the host of the discussion. The model is the thrower of a dinner party, not the professor at seminary. He asked "but... what if someone says something like "I think God hates redheads?" I said "interesting..." I looked around his office, as if at a group of guests. "Does anyone else here think God hates redheads?"
Maybe it's Google's fault that we have become so impatient with wondering. Maybe the instant gratification of immediate and infinite answers has made us forget what it's like to mull things over, to try thoughts on like new shoes and walk around in them a bit to see how they fit. And maybe we think everyone who asks a question expects and answer, just like they'd get from google.
But in the Church, maybe it's something else that makes us rush to fill the empty cup with the bucket of our theological knowledge. Maybe it's because we don't expect people to hang around for long. For sure, this is why confirmation preparation is designed like an SAT prep course in Catholicism. We expect our confirmands to leave as of Confirmation day, so we scramble to back-fill the time we have with them, with all the theological knowledge and emotional experience we can.
Alpha has taught me to love the questions, because I love the questioners. It absolutely thrills me when someone I know asks a deep, juicy theological question, and since I've learned this way of teaching, I have come to love letting people figure things out before I come swooping in with the Catholic Answer.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a bar with my friend's Millennial neice. Over mussels (me) and vegetarian pasta (she), this woman said out of the blue, "you know what I don't like about religion?" Oh my God. So good. Do tell.
She said "if good people go to heaven, how can they be up there, all happy, while people are suffering in Hell? Wouldn't it make a good person sad that others are suffering?"
What a great question!! Does anyone else wonder about that? Ido.
I did not give her an answer, but I told her that I loved her question- and that it says a lot about her, the question-asker. She's a social worker, working with Veterans, and she has always, since she was a little girl, stood on the side of the outsider, the downtrodden. That question was so Gretchen, and it made me a little sad to know that she had been raised to believe in a God that creates a heaven that is full of people whose eternal happiness is counter-balanced by the eternal suffering of someone else.
I told her that a professor of mine in college said once that he believes in Hell, but he does not believe there's anyone there. I could not cite the catechism on this idea, and... well, it wasn't even an answer. That idea, that God is universally, unbelievably, inhumanly merciful, changed the course of my beliefs permanently. I hope it was a peek, for Gretchen, into the possibility that what she'd been sold about heaven and hell, and by extension, about God, wasn't necessarily the only version to be had. I hope, and I have faith., that God can work in that peek-space, that Gretchen will keep questioning, keep wondering, and maybe come to a new understanding.
Leading Alpha (after 20-something years of ministry) taught me about not teaching. In Alpha, we forbid our small group leaders from teaching. We coach them to, when a guest asks a question, turn and say "oh wow, that's such a great question. Does anyone else wonder about that?" It's the hardest thing to teach people. Adults, especially, who volunteer at church expect themselves to be able to answer questions, to be able to dole out sage wisdom whenever the opportunity arises.
When my pastor was getting ready to teach people how to be on Alpha team in Spanish, I remember telling him about this. He said "I don't understand." I told him that the teaching happens in the video, the job of the host is to be just that- the host of the discussion. The model is the thrower of a dinner party, not the professor at seminary. He asked "but... what if someone says something like "I think God hates redheads?" I said "interesting..." I looked around his office, as if at a group of guests. "Does anyone else here think God hates redheads?"
Maybe it's Google's fault that we have become so impatient with wondering. Maybe the instant gratification of immediate and infinite answers has made us forget what it's like to mull things over, to try thoughts on like new shoes and walk around in them a bit to see how they fit. And maybe we think everyone who asks a question expects and answer, just like they'd get from google.
But in the Church, maybe it's something else that makes us rush to fill the empty cup with the bucket of our theological knowledge. Maybe it's because we don't expect people to hang around for long. For sure, this is why confirmation preparation is designed like an SAT prep course in Catholicism. We expect our confirmands to leave as of Confirmation day, so we scramble to back-fill the time we have with them, with all the theological knowledge and emotional experience we can.
Alpha has taught me to love the questions, because I love the questioners. It absolutely thrills me when someone I know asks a deep, juicy theological question, and since I've learned this way of teaching, I have come to love letting people figure things out before I come swooping in with the Catholic Answer.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a bar with my friend's Millennial neice. Over mussels (me) and vegetarian pasta (she), this woman said out of the blue, "you know what I don't like about religion?" Oh my God. So good. Do tell.
She said "if good people go to heaven, how can they be up there, all happy, while people are suffering in Hell? Wouldn't it make a good person sad that others are suffering?"
What a great question!! Does anyone else wonder about that? Ido.
I did not give her an answer, but I told her that I loved her question- and that it says a lot about her, the question-asker. She's a social worker, working with Veterans, and she has always, since she was a little girl, stood on the side of the outsider, the downtrodden. That question was so Gretchen, and it made me a little sad to know that she had been raised to believe in a God that creates a heaven that is full of people whose eternal happiness is counter-balanced by the eternal suffering of someone else.
I told her that a professor of mine in college said once that he believes in Hell, but he does not believe there's anyone there. I could not cite the catechism on this idea, and... well, it wasn't even an answer. That idea, that God is universally, unbelievably, inhumanly merciful, changed the course of my beliefs permanently. I hope it was a peek, for Gretchen, into the possibility that what she'd been sold about heaven and hell, and by extension, about God, wasn't necessarily the only version to be had. I hope, and I have faith., that God can work in that peek-space, that Gretchen will keep questioning, keep wondering, and maybe come to a new understanding.
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