Whole Church E-Book

Rune Larsson

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 330

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Whole church, for the sake of the world. A church informs about its faith through all that it is, says and does. This threefold way of telling determines what the recipient hears. Therefore, if a church wants to be true to its mission it must constantly ask itself two questions: What is the church's calling, and what is the message it sends? How do our churches deal with this challenge? The Church is not for its own sake, but for the world, one of the analyzed documents says. It is called to be an instrument for our loving God´s plan to heal a broken world. The basic pattern is found in the Holy Scriptures, but in every time and every cultural context the Church must seek relevant ways and forms. And why not do this in conversation and with open ears to the experiences of others, and with the courage to change, if necessary? The first part of the book is the result of such a listening. Perhaps it surprises someone that I turned to three American Catholics to listen to their experiences. Inspired by the radical message of the Second Vatican Council, they challenge their own church to a radical paradigm shift on the way of being a trustworthy church. Using the model they developed as a base, I turned to my own church, the Uniting Church in Sweden, by asking the same question battery, and the same to an ecumenical document, The Church: Towards a Common Vision. And the result? Yet another reminder that every church that wants to be part of God's mission for the sake of the world must constantly test itself in the face of the critical questions of how it faithfully can pass on its message of joys and hope to the world.

Leseprobe

In memory of

Maria Harris

– who went before

Contents

Tables and more

Foreword

Some personal words on the way into the book

About the title of the book

The courage to listen to the other

Introduction

Background and purpose

PART I Three proposals on a holistic pedagogy

Chapter 1 Maria Harris – Dance of the Spirit

Presentation of the author

Summary presentation of the book I have used

What drives Harris to design his model of holistic pedagogy?

How does Harris design her holistic approach?

Summary

Bibliography

Chapter 2. Thomas H. Groome – Shared Praxis

Presentation of the author

Overview of the writings of Groome I have used

What drives Groome to design his model TCC?

How does Groome design his holistic approach?

Summary

Bibliography

Chapter 3 Bill Huebsch – Lifelong Learning

Presentation of the author

Overview of the writings by Huebsch I used

What drives Huebsch to design his model of WCC?

How does Huebsch design his holistic approach?

Summary

Bibliography

Chapter 4 Consensus and divergences in the holistic pedagogy

Introduction

What drives the various authors of reforms?

Towards a paradigm shift

The alternative models

Biography

PART II The holistic pedagogy and the unity of the Church

Chapter 5. Uniting Church in Sweden – community, testimony, service

Introduction

Presentation of Uniting Church in Sweden (UCS)

Overview presentation of the source material

Analysis of the source material with a focus on its pedagogic potential

Summary

Biography

Chapter 6 Koinonia — The Church towards a common vision

Introduction

Presentation of the Church on the way

Analysis focusing on the educational potential

Summary

Biography

Chapter 7 Closing thoughts. Whole Church – for the sake of the world

For healing the brokenness of the world

The ´forms´ of the faith and life of the Church

Koinonian's welcoming participation

Sounds like music

Tables and more

Table 1. Changing view of learning and teaching at Maria Harris

Table 2: Compilation of specified ”forms” in Groome's publications

Table 3: Criticism of the ”Schoolhouse Model” at Huebsch

Tabel1 4: Forms of teaching at Harris and Groome

Table 5: Forms of teaching at Groome

Table 6: The Six “forms” or “instruments” of Harris and Groome

Bible quotations from the New American Bible 2002

Foreword

Some personal words on the way into the book

Why should a simple member of a small congregation in a small church in a small country like Sweden write about three influential Catholic theologians in the great country of the United States, deeply involved in the world-wide Roman Catholic Church? And also link this with my own church, the Uniting Church in Sweden, and an ecumenical and visionary document from the World Council of Churches and Faith and Order? The short answer is that I share the concerns of many about an overly weak and divided Church in a world that more than ever needs to be faithful in its call to share the gospel's happy message as a possible alternative to conflict and selfishness in the world, and do it in the form of a loving community of reconciled diversity. Listen with me to the voice that sounds through two thousand years about a message of joy to the poor. ... deliverance for the captives and vision for the blind, to give the oppressed freedom and ... a year of grace from the Lord (Luk 4:18-19).

With many, I share the defiant hope of a loving God who loves his creation and wants to heal what's broken. Let us renew our Yes to this hope united in the call to be God's collaboraters in His mighty plan for the creation he loved so that he bestowed upon his Son....

About the title of the book

The title of the book, ”Whole Church – for the sake of the world”, can also be written ”Healed, whole, healing Church…”. To become and be whole, the Church itself must live in a healing process, so that it becomes one and thrustworthy in everything it is, says and does. Only then can the Church be the tool for the transformation of the world that God intended with his church. It's not for its own sake, it's for the world's.1

The courage to listen to the other

In the first chapter of the book, I invite my readers to a conversation with three Catholic friends and colleagues, whom I present and reflect on. Because that is how I imagine active reading and humble listening with an open mind and courage to draw the consequences to the information that the conversation leads us to. Dare to join me in the conversation with the Catholic trio and try the opportunity to bring the Swedish Uniting Church into the conversation about that church's selfunderstanding and calling.

Then join me in the next round of talks with questions raised by the ecumenical conversations on the way to church unity landed in the document, the Church – on the way to a common vision (Church towards). And finally, join me in thinking about what the conversations that have been conducted can provide for the continued path towards the realization of – Whole Church – for the sake of the world.

Without saying that I myself am a particularly good listener, I believe in the importance of listening to fellow pilgrims along the way. I think we need to practice listening for the wisdom God has given his people throughout history and constantly giving – even to pilgrims along ways other than those we usually hang out with. Feel free to think for a few moments about some wise words by the former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams about the importance of getting guidance by reading the Bible together, “in company with Christians through the ages”:

God has given me, whether I like it or not, a very, very large number of companions on the journey. Each one of whom will have some-thing distinctive to say however well I hear it, however easily I digest it. …

And I would want to add at this point that an educated reader of the Bible is also some-body who knows how to read the Bible in company – in company with other Christians now, in company with Christians through the ages.2

My belief is that such reading and such a conversation and listening can lead to new insights into what it means to be a church for the world today. I also believe that such listening to what other Christians in history and nowadays have been given mercy to receive and discover can enrich and innovate. Perhaps such renewal insights await especially those who have the courage to listen to sisters and brothers from whom they have over many years not expected God's appeal, such as my friends in the world-wide Roman Catholic Church. Sure, in this lies the risk (!) of new insights pushing us towards unforeseen changes and painful reassessment. But perhaps new insights also open up opportunities for greater fidelity to the entrusted calling to be a church – for the sake of the world.

***

Finally. I have dedicated the book to the friend and one of the inspiring people behind the book, Maria Harris, who, after a rich life in the service of her church and after a period of illness, left us in 2005. Behind the perhaps somewhat cryptic words “who went before” lies two things: firstly, I see her as the pioneer behind the pedagogical-ecclesiological holistic approach ”the Whole community catechesis” I´m writing about – secondly, the words refer to her as a friend who has completed her working days before me and the rest of us on the road towards the unity and wholeness we are looking for.

Lomma in Spring 2021

Rune Larsson

1The Church: Towards a Common Vision, #58.

2 Rowan Williams (2004), Excerpt from CEFACS lecture, Birmingham, Wednesday 03 November 2004.

Introduction

Background and purpose

In its mission to communicate its faith, the Christian Church has always used many forms. As a basis for this, reference has often been made to the so-called mission command (Mt. 28:19-20):

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”3

This is about the first basic proclamation and teaching for those who have not heard the message before. It also included the baptismal act, the way into the community. In other contexts, we meet teaching and learning in worship and deaconal practice in the local church, the place where the Christian faith is heard, seen and lived most clearly.

Forms and focus have shifted. For the teaching, the focus has often been on children and young people before recently broadening the perspective towards lifelong learning. For a long time, the mediation of Christian faith – alongside preaching and personal testimony – was tied to the special teaching until one discovered the obvious in the fact that the Church tells about its faith in everything it is, says and is doing. As in so much else, our Lord was also in this the great model. This holistic approach of learning and teaching is not only aimed at everyone, it is a lifelong process and therefore in fact lacks an end point. Add to this the remarkable fact that this learning and teaching is also based on everyone, since everyone is involved in the formation of the Christian Church and its lived faith. Therefore, it is not only individuals who participate in learning, growing and change. This process also includes the Church itself as a vibrant changing community.

It is about this holistic view of the Church with all its expressions of life that I want to tell, a church whose many names each tell us something about what it is meant to be. Taste the word community or koinonia, the People of God, the Pilgrims, and the People of the way. That people are characterized by the community of participation of people with different gifts and thus different tasks, in service for each other and above all for the sake of the world and all creation.

Paradigm shift in view of the Church and its mission

In the book's opening three chapters, I use the word “paradigm shift”, as a kind of response to the longing for a radical change in the view of the Church and its life the three writers see as necessary. I leave it to my readers to refresh the memory of what this strange word that Thomas Kuhn once in the early 1960s formulated.4

The first section of the book is based on publications by three Catholic theologians and educators who have at least two things in common. Firstly, they have seen serious shortcomings in the way their Church manages its mission. Secondly, they have all been inspired by the radical renewal they saw in the message of the Second Vatican Council (hereafter Vatikan Council). In this, they saw the possibility of a radical turning point in the view of the Church and its mission, a paradigm shift in the spirit of Kuhn. For the three, the dream of renewal was primarily aimed at their own Catholic Church. In my way of thinking, I imagine that various “anomalies”, i.e. less adequate forms, have long existed in many churches. During the council, new thought patterns are chiselled out, often under great effort.5 For many years to come, the impulses of the Vatican Council would start usable extensive new work within the Catholic Church – and far beyond its borders.

A recurring feature of the examples I deal with in the first three chapters of the book is their approach to the phenomenon Kuhn would call “anomaly”. These were things in church life that were perceived not only as irritable and trembling, but because they were simply no longer functional. Crucial elements of the “response” to these “anomalies” draw the three authors from the Vatican Council. In doing so, they had not only seen the weaknesses of the church's traditional teachings, but also covered opportunities to shape something new.

Let me clarify this in a few words from Martin Luther King's speech in Memphis in April 1968. In the midst of the fierce struggle for something better, he has metaphorically been at the top of the mountain, looking into the promised land of the future, which had not yet been materialised but was about to break out. “I have seen the promised land…!” This hope and vision gave him the power and courage to continue the struggle.6 I think the authors were driven by a similar vision, as they had seen in the messages from the Vatican Council. And I believe that the spirit of the Vatican Council pushed them towards an ending with what no longer responded to the vision they had seen and which inspired them to shape their proposals into a more constructive practice.

In the second section of the book, some basic documents from the Uniting Church in Sweden are analysed using the same question battery as in the analysis of the three Catholic educators. Finally, with an easy adaptation of the same tool, I embark on the ecumenical document, The Church: Towards a Common Vision, and then link the study with the image of the Church as an orchestra, playing the Lord's masterpiece, using different reconciled instruments.

In the work on the first three chapters, the tools for my analysis emerged and with some adaptation the same schedule for the analyses and comments has been used in the following chapters.

Preliminary schema for analysis and comments

Presentation of the author/equivalent

Overview presentation of writings/documents

The driving forces behind the design of the holistic pedagogy

Overview on the proposal for a holistic approach

Who are the carriers/persons responsible for the missionThe “places” of teaching, and what is included in “community”?“The forms”

Koinonia – the community as a learning environmentTestimonyLiturgy/the serviceDidaché/teachingTeaching/kerygmaDiakonia, service of love

Summary

Literature and references to Foreword and Introduction

Dulles Avery in the article The Church, in Abbott, M Walter, gen. editor (1966) The documents of Vatican II. All sixteen official texts promulgated by the ecumenical council 1963-1965.

Kuhn, Thomas (1962/2009), Structure of scientific revolutions.

Williams, Rowan (2004) Extract from CEFACS lecture, Birmingham, Wednesday 03 November 2004.

3 Here and in the following Bible quote according to the New American Bible (2002)

4 Thomas Kuhn (1962), Structure of scientific revolutions. See https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigmskifte

5 See Avery Dulles' comments on the work of the Council at the preparation of the Lumen Gentium in his article in Abbott (1966), The Documents of the Vatican Council.

6 See: www.afscme.org/about/history/mlk/mountaintop “I’ve Been to the Mountain top” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

PART I Three proposals on a holistic pedagogy

The first part of the book consists of three chapters, in which I investigate three authors who run the thesis about what I have chosen to call the holistic pedagogy. All three are American Catholics with a clear ecumenical attitude without therefore becoming vague about their ecclesiastical abode. On the contrary, in some cases they can emphasise the importance of clarity in their identity as the basis for constructive conversations with people within other traditions. In the closing chapter of the part, I summarise and compare the various contributions. This, in turn, may form the basis for the analysis of the material in Part II.

In the presentation and analysis of the three, I make use as far as possible of a common structure, which, in adapted form, also forms the basis of Part II. An overview of this structure is shown above in the end of Introduction.

Chapter 1. Maria Harris – Dance of the Spirit

In the first chapter, I address Maria Harris's thoughts that she unfolds in her book, Fashion me a People (1989). For many years as a “parish educator” and counsellor in this area, Harris has come to realize that all that the Church is, says and does within it carries an educational streak. Without using the term “Total community Catechesis”, she finds herself stumbled close with formules such as “whole community (catechesis)”. There is no doubt that she advocates a form of holistic approach and that she is a predecessor in the field. In addition, she opens up to weave together catechesis and ecclesiology, thereby laying the foundation for the holistic pedagogy that is the focus of my study.

Chapter 2. Thomas H. Groome – Shared Praxis

In addition to his more wellknown and widely landscaped work in religious education, as Christian Religious Education (1980) and Sharing Faith. A Comprehensive Approach (1991, he has paid significant attention to this form of holistic education, what he calls Total Community Catechesis (TCC). At the earliest, it takes place in an article in 1990 and later in some articles in the early 2000s and then develops in more detail in 2011 in the book Will There Be Faith? In my study, I primarily use this work, given that it may be assumed to be his most elaborate and up-to-date position in this area.

Chapter 3. Bill Huebsch – Lifelong learning

The third example I use is Bill Huebsch, who has played an important role from around the year 2000 calling his approach Whole Community Catechesis. He has developed his thoughts in a number of mono-grafies and articles, which I describe in the chapter. My analysis is primarily based on the 2002 monograph with additional parts from some of his other writings.

Chapter 4. Consensus and divergence in the holistic pedagogy

A brief summary of similarities and differences between the three.

Chapter 1 Maria Harris – Dance of the Spirit7

Presentation of the author8

Maria Harris (1932-2005) lived her first years in New York City. For many years she belonged to a religious order with a main focus on teaching. Her great aesthetic and artistic interest led to music studies and her own teaching of music. In addition, she studied pedagogy and theology. During her time as an order sister and throughout her life, she devoted great interest to the aesthetic dimension of teaching.

For several years she led the work on adult educationat the diocese level and during the 1970s and 1980s she published a number of books to guide the educational work of the parishes. Towards the end of the 1980s, a number of books were published, the titles of which give a good insight into the breadth of the author's interest and commitment: Women and Teaching: Themes for a Spirituality of Pedagogy (1988), Fashion Me a People: Curriculum and the Church (1989) – the book I use for this study – and Dance of the Spirit: The Seven Steps of Women's Spirituality (1989).

I came to know a side of great importance to her commitment at a seminar around the turn of the millennium, where she shared several years of work on this issue. Among other things, she drew inspiration from the Bible's story of the great year of jubilation in Genesis 25, in a Swedish translation called the Free Year. A book on the theme was published in 1996 with the title, Proclaim Jubilee: A Spirituality for the 21st Century. Here, her life's great commitment to aesthetics and spirituality shines through, but also the struggle for freedom and justice.

She wrote her first and last book with her husband and colleague, Gabriel Moran, whom she married in 1986. Moran was a professor of Education at New York University and has been one of the country's prominent religious educators for many years. References to him are also glimpsed here and there in the book I use. Their first joint book was published in 1968, Experiences in Community: Should religious life survive? Thirty years later came the last, Reshaping Religious Education: Conversations on Contemporary Practice.

Summary presentation of the book I have used

The following analysis is based in its entirety on Fashion Me a People: Curriculum and the Church from1989 (hereafter Harris 1989). The only exception from this you will find in the title's attempt to characterize Harris's pedagogy, ecclesiology and practice, where spirituality and aesthetics have always had a prominent place.

My choice to start my investigation with Harris 1989 is justified by the fact that this was the the first pblication I knew of on my main theme, namely holistic pedagogy in the form that was designated Total (or Whole) Community Catechesis (TCC/WCC) even though she herself does not explicitly use any of these terms in full. The Introduction to her book states that she sometimes uses the term “whole community” or “whole curriculum” but without the use of the wording that would later become habitual.9 Nevertheless, it is clear from the content of the book that it belongs within the framework of the theme I have chosen to examine, as confirmed by Thomas Groome much later, when he writes in an article from 2006 that Maria Harris laid the foundations for the thoughts of TCC.10

From the publisher's foreword, we learn that the book is the second of three publications in a project on different aspects of church teaching practice. Here we also find a couple of the basic ideas in the book, mention that the Church teaches through its very existence or being and that its practice is designed as a cooperative human activity.11

In the opening sections Acknowledgements and Introduction, Harris provides some important keys to understand the following paarat of the book. One of these appears in her imagery. A central place in this occupies here the prophet Jeremiah's painting description of God as a potter, which also forms the basis of the book's title. Without tiring, he shapes his people into an ever increasing godlikeness (Jer 18), in his own image, as it is called, referring to the Bible's story of creation. Here, for example, the important concept of ”shaping” for Harris, which in her pedagogical thinking goes deeper or rather constitutes a necessary complement to the overly intellectually oriented ”school” pedagogy she rejects, because it is not enough for the forming task. The imagery also shows her sense of ethics with its expression of human creative ability.

Already in this part, some of the building blocks of what she describes as the forms of ecclesiastical pedagogy are also evident. The first, she draws from the Apostles' account of how the first Christians faithfully participated in ”the apostles´ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. …and distribute to all, as any had need.” (Acts 2:42, 44-47). Here she sees some of the central elements of the church's timeless and fundamental services, which she then develops in both main parts of the book – the forms that, according to Harris, have to varying degrees been included through the entire history of the Church.

In the first part of the book, she describes the church and its various expressions of life as the “context” of teaching. Already the choice of title for the first chapter, Church: A People with a Pastoral Vocation, shows her close connection to a central theme of the Vatican Council, notably the idea of the people of God. The main track of what she mentions as the church's pastoral calling can be summarized in her words about the calling to live her faith by caring both for ourselves, others and the creation. The chapter mixes criticism of prevailing theory and practice with her suggestions for the thought patterns she believes the Church should strive to better show allegiance to its calling.

The second chapter entitled Church: A People with an Educational Vocation focuses on the mission of the people of God to teach. Here, too, criticism of past shortcomings is mixed with a broad redevelopment of her own approach, in which she pushes the thesis that the entire church's life carries a teaching potential.

This will also be the main theme of the third chapter, which has been given a slightly different title, Curriculum: The Course of the Church Life. At this point, I would like to point out that Harris, using the word curriculum, in full accordance with the scientific discussion on the concept, and that she really intends to achieve much more than a defined curriculum. In addition to the formal and planned teaching (explicit), according to Harris, the learning that is constantly going on in other ways (implicitly), for example in the surrounding environment, must be given space. This sometimes also includes the so-called hidden curriculum, things that in various forms can be included, even if it is not visible or is a conscious part of the driven activity. As a variant of this, Harris also uses the concept of null curriculum, things that have been consciously or unconsciously omitted or forgotten. She sums up her view of “curriculum” as follows:

The curriculum must take into account three forms: the explicit curriculum, the implicit curriculum, and the null curriculum.12

As in the previous chapter, Harris combines his critique of prevailing views on learning and teaching with continuing his construction of a pedagogic alternative with a clear ecclesiological connection. With these three opening chapters, Harris has now laid the foundation for the book's second section, The Vocation, which in five chapters shows her ´total´ pedagogy, where learning and teaching are presented as part of the whole life of the Church as a whole. The originality here is that instead of restricting the discussion to the special teaching (didaché) alongside it, she highlights the pedagogical potential also in another four more forms of church life, namely community (koinonia), liturgy (worship/prayer), teaching (kerygma) and diakoni. The “forms” that create the basis for the following analysis of Harris' holistic educational model.

The final third part, The Planning, has a practical approach with feedback to the introduction's thoughts on an “artistic vocation of fashioning” to help people in parishes to practically realize what they have come to understand. As a result, the only chapter of the part has been titled Facilitating the Fashioning. After a summary of previous pedagogiska traditions, she notes that she has now presented

an alternative vision of what curriculum is... It includes the entire course of the church's life, the play and the interplay of community, prayer, service, teaching, and proclamation.... (and, she adds as a summary of both main parts of the book), The pastoral and the educational vocations demand that the work of church curriculum, like education itself, be neverending.13

In the final part and chapter of the book, the author's aesthetic and artistic way of thinking blossoms. Notice subtitles like The Church as Artist, like the steps of a dance (notice the headline I've given this chapter, Dance of Spirit). Contemplation, Commitment, Design and Emergence follow, the moment when the potter (note the feedback to the opening imagery) sees how the clay is starting to take shape and what this step means for Release, the last (dance) step, which is not a finish but the way into the next round.14

Finally, I would like to remind you how the author's pedagogical direction manifests itself in the fact that at the end of each chapter the reader is invited to Reflection and practice with exercises in applying the chapter's proposals and applying them to their own experiences in their area of responsibility.

What drives Harris to design his model of holistic pedagogy?

In short, the answer is that the previous restriction only on children does not work for the realisation of lifelong learning for all and through the life. Furthermore, Harris turns against what she calls educational ´schooling´ with a one-sided focus on the intellectual knowledge necessary in itself. Already in Acknowledgments, she says that she has become convinced of the importance of distinguishing between curriculum of schooling and curriculum of education (one-sidedly focused on the intellect and learning aimed at the whole person). Real learning is aimed at the whole person. The teaching that is conducted both in society as a whole and perhaps even more in the Church therefore needs to provide space for forming people, what we – in German – might call Bildung. Such a forming always has a clear purpose, much like in the image of the potter. This way of thinking leads her to an educational model, where the whole life of the Church takes part in an ongoing process of learning. There is no doubt that Harris's personal commitment to creativity and the view of individuals' unique equipment and responsible participation is behind her criticism of a one-sided cognitive and timelimited ´schooling´. For her, the church's vocation has a much greater breadth.

Already in the book's Introduction, this criticism manifests itself:

Curriculum is more than materials and techniques, it is intended for adults as well as children; and it is offered through more forms of education than is called schooling. We are moving towards a creative vision that sees all facets of the church's life (italic here) as the church curriculum.15

One side of the criticism is that everyone must be allowed to participate in the realization of the Church's calling. That task cannot be handed over to priests and other specially selected people alone.16 The criticism is clarified in the second chapter, when she returns to the proposal that learning and teaching in the Church must go on your whole life. This gives her reason to question what she perceives as today's practice with its exclusive focus on children and that learning was something that could be completed and put behind you.

The second “misunderstanding” was, she says, the one-sided (school)-based exclusive focus of teaching on children's cognitive knowledge. Firstly, teaching must be aimed at everyone, i.e. both children and other ages. Secondly, it must be broadened to include the formation of all the human being, not just her intellect.17

To remedy these “misunderstandings” Harris advocates his suggestion that teaching must be “an artistic work” that includes all human abilities. As regards the focus on lifelong learning, she also refers to Gabriel Moran's thesis, about teaching and learning ”without end”.18

The criticism recurs as a background to the third chapter's petition that the entire life of the Church constitutes its curriculum. This presupposes everyone's participation. It is no longer possible to hand over responsibility in the Church to only the ordained. 19 Examples of obstacles are the tradition of the time of Reformation with its focus on memory learning (memorization) of questions and answers about church faith. A form that spread among most churches and also the Catholic one right up to the Vatican Council, although during this time the ecclesiastical community and liturgy also conveyed other knowledge, not least through their liturgy.20

The criticism is also included as an underlying tone in the second part's presentation of the Church and what is included in the church's multifaceted forms of teaching.21 The same also applies to the sections, in which she describes the Church as the people of God in accordance with central Vatican council documents.

With table 1 below, Harris outlines her criticism and what she seeks as an alternative. The schedule is taken from the book's second chapter, A people with an educational vocation.22

The schedule shows the radical changes that will be the consequences of the theory Harris advocates. Notice the clear markings of, for example, “The doers of education are the community as community.” This means that the efforts of individuals are also basically “ecclesiastical services” No one can be a Christian on their own, as it is called in the section on koinonia: ”One Christian is no Christian”.

Table 1: Changing Views on learning and teaching at Maria Harris

Previous

New

Agent

Individual and/or official

The

whole community

Activity

Learning and/or

indoctrination

Education and empowerment to understand

Involved

Children

The

whole community, all ages

Focus

To know the

tradition heritage

and

obay the laws

Commitment to service in the world (To engage in

ministry in the midst of the world)

Another example of Harris's new thinking, she shows, “the church does not have an educational program, it is an educational program.” But learning and teaching are aimed not only at individuals, but also at the Church itself, “... the whole community is education and empowering the whole community to engage in ministry in the midst of the world.”23 Or even more clearly:

The whole community is coming to know itself as a learner, to know itself as the subject of education, and to know itself as the one whose path is unending.24

Finally, Harris is clear that the outreach of the Church in the world is an essential, yes even inalienable, part of its mission. It is a call to a service, founded on a conscious and reflected commitment to the world, or as she puts it, a “world aware ministry”.25 The call for service is not only an internal church matter, which applies only to the Church and its expressions of life. It includes, just as obvious, the whole world in which the Church lives its life and performs its service.

How does Harris design her holistic approach?

Who are her most important sources?

Harris has surprisingly few direct references to documents from the Vatican Council and its follow-up in later official documents. An exception is the references to Lumen Gentium, which she mentions when she highlights the participation of all the people of God in the triple office of Christ, the priestly, the prophetic, and the royal (also named ´political´).26

What one would expect is that in her use of ”People of God” in several chapter headings, she would refer to its central place in Lumen Gentium, for example, and the radicality that this language nevertheless represented.27 Another document can be traced behind a quote she enters in support of the idea that each baptized member and the entire church is included in the call to teach. This applies to the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, adopted in 1966, one year after Lumen Gentium.

For the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate. No part of the structure of a living body is merely passive but has a share in the functions as well as life of the body: so, too, in the body of Christ, which is the Church, ”the whole body . . . in keeping with the proper activity of each party, derives its increase from its own internal development”(Eph 4:16).28

I take it for granted that she was well acquainted with the Council documents, which is also confirmed by the fact that on a few more occasions she refers to texts in Abbott's American edition of the Council's documents with accompanying comments. In addition, she mentions a few direct references to ecclesiastical documents, such as a couple originating in the American Catholic Church. The most important of these is undoubtedly Sharing the Light of Faith (1979), in turn a follow-up in the American contex tby the General Catechetical Directory from 1971, which was commissioned by the Vatican Council and thus constitutes another clear link to the Council.29

Harris's familiarity with the Vatican Council's challenges to the renewal of the church with its implications for learning and teaching can also be seen in Avery Dulles' article, The Church, which is part of Abbott's mentioned publication. In his presentation, Dulles touches on several of the aspects that takes a central place in Harris's book. The article, which makes a comment to Lumen Gentium, has been placed in direct accession to this Constitution. In the article, Dulles shows very clearly his view that teaching is the mission of the entire Church and that responsibility can not only be placed on the hierarchy, but also rests on ”the laity”. All baptized are thus, according to him, the carriers of Christ's triple office, ”prophet, priest, and the king”, as Harris also points out.30 And, continues Dulles, the Church as a whole has ”a total task” which he summarizes with the words ”testimony, service, and fellowship.” About these, he writes, that they are

... strongly biblical; they appear in the Greek New Testament as martyrion, diakonia, and koinōnia. From an ecumenical point of view, it is significant that these were the three terms about which the Third General Assembly of the World Council of Churches, meeting at New Delhi in 1961, centered its discussions.31

Here, Dulles shares the same reasoning as Harris, also references of the Bible, both around the three terms that Dulles specifies and the other two that she uses.32 Dulles's observation that this view is also shared by other churches is also well in line with Harris's ecumenical approach.33

The direct references to the Vatican Council and its follow-ups are otherwise quite few. Nevertheless, as I have already pointed out, I am convinced that she was well acquainted with the extensive innovation that the Vatican Council represented and inspired. Examples of documents I expected explicit references to are To Teach as Jesus did (1972, USA), Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) and Catechesis Tradendae (1979), all of which were certainly on her bookshelf.

As a basis and support for her writing, Harris refers to a lot of other material, although in most cases it is occasionally. For example, she enlists the help of John Dewey in her reasoning on ”education (as) reconstructing and reorganisation of experience” – something that in his thinking is going on in a constant process and that opens up opportunities to discover meaning for past experiences and in things that we are currently in.34 Paulo Freire is also mentioned on a few occasions. The first time in connection with idea to see each learner as a subject.35 The second time, it deals with the assertion that all forms of teaching are embedded in values and the great importance of being aware of this. In all cases, these references touch on important elements of Harris's new approach.36

Groome has already been mentioned in connection to the political aspect of teaching. References to him recur later in a reasoning about the many forms and approaches of teaching, when she mentions to Groome the characteristic concepts, ´Sharing´ and ”Shared practice”.37 Twice she refers to her husband, Gabriel Moran, a professor at the University of New York. The first time it happens when Harris writes about the many forms of teaching, which I return to later on.38

The person Harris mentions the most times is one of America's leading religious educators for many years, John H. Westerhoff III, a member of the Episcopalian Church. The first time it comes amid criticism of the one-sided focus on intellectual fact learning, the second time in the chapter on the community and how life in the present obliges to live in accountability for both what lies behind and the future, about being ”a community of memory, of vision, and of hope”. Further more, he appears in the episode about a liturgy with a clear connection between the cult's rites and everyday life.39