Guns and Power

 It occurred to me the other day that I have seen nothing in the debate about guns and violence concerning the relation of guns to power. Let me try. There are not a lot of conclusions here, only an attempt to explore and maybe understand what is going on behind and underneath this issue.



1. Guns are neither good nor evil in themselves.  A gun by itself is a mechanical tool. It is not merely a mechanical tool because it is inherently dangerous. It  be used for good, such as the necessity of hunting food or of defending oneself, or it can be used to wantonly kill wildlife or other humans.

2. Power likewise is neither good nor bad in itself. We commonly tend to think of power pejoratively as an evil, but what we object to is the misuse of power. Power is little more that the ability to do or accomplish something. In a society of other people with disparate goals, it is the ability to influence others to work together for a larger purpose. Nothing good in this world was created without power and certainly much evil has been inflicted on the world by its misuse.

3. Someone with a gun in hand or holstered has more power than someone who does not. It is the power of life and death. To possess a gun, especially in a situation where a gun are not normally expected to be present, is to possess great power for the intimidation of others. The power of a gun is in its ability to exact fear in another. A person with a gun is powerful because others without guns cannot easily object to that person’s demands without threat, explicit or implicit, of great injury or death. The possession of a gun is a threat to those who are unarmed.

4. As a society we permit persons with police powers to carry guns. Normally, we have no reason to object to the presence of the police who possess guns. They possess guns in order to pose a legitimate threat to any who would do harm or break laws, which are the rules we have agreed to through our elected representatives. The presence of police is meant to be protective, not threatening. Police power is restrained by many rules and much training. We authorize or give authority to police to carry weapons on our behalf.

5. If two persons who are not police, carry guns, they are a threat to each other. Neither has reason to believe that the other intends harm, but has reason to be suspicious of the other’s intentions because each has the power to kill the other. Each may have a Second Amendment right to carry a gun, but the authority, legitimacy and control existing under police powers are absent. This is the situation of the mythical “wild West.” Each is capable of claiming the right of vigilante justice. Such quick and rationalized “justice” is more likely to be vengeful, violent, and mistaken. Historically, people have resorted to guns in the absence of government authority.

6. Police powers are not ubiquitous in our society. I live in a small town where the only police presence is from the County Sheriff 15 miles away or a state police car which may be in the area. There is one deputy on patrol for every 90 square miles in this county. Much of their work concerns traffic safety. We may describe such a society as basically “peaceful,” when residents are generally unafraid of one another needing only a minimal police presence.

7. In a generally peaceful society we have little need to defend ourselves or prepare to do so. If two persons have a dispute, either or both may have tendency to anger or rage. If either of these persons carries a gun, the potential for a shooting is substantial. Therefore, we have reason to be concerned that others around us may be carrying a gun on their person, in their car, or close by in their home. Fear of being harmed by another with a knife or a club, or just because that person appears bigger and stronger, is a reason why guns are purchased and carried for protection.

8. Fear of crime is another reason given for gun ownership. At one extreme, some people do not lock their doors at night. Others keep their doors bolted even in daylight. Many studies have shown that much fear of crime is unjustified. Perception of widespread crime is a product of media coverage of crime. If there is a considerable amount of crime in an area, a person may feel a need for a gun to protect self and family. This is a decision based on the reality that police force may be too far away to be able to intercede in an altercation. Property and violent crime tend to be more prevalent in poor areas. A gun may not be necessary to protect property from an intruder without a gun, but there is a long tradition in English law giving the right to shoot if one’s home I invaded. Here is a foundation stone of our Second Amendment rights. Historically, individuals owned guns for hunting. The same guns could be used in such a situation, in protection against crime. Many accidental shootings have occurred both hunting and in the mistaken belief that a family member or friend was an intruder intending harm.

9. In a time when many people see themselves as powerless, some will seek to fill that void in their lives with the a gun. Perception of powerlessness and perception of the power given by a gun are the driving forces here. People feel powerless when they have lost control of one or more aspects of their lives. This includes abandonment and divorce, loss of jobs, perceived threat by immigration of peoples who may have different customs or not speak English, perception of an increase of crime, failure to achieve political or ideological goals, fear of government invasion of individual rights, and even fear of foreign invasion. The rise of the current zombie meme may be a function of this growing fear of amorphous threats to our well-being.

10. War is the ultimate use of guns to achieve ends. Von Clauswitz said that war was the pursuit of politics or the continuation of policy by other means. Total war was a creation of the 19th century. Nuclear warfare is its limit. Brutality in entertainment has recently broken all limits. Many films feature wholly unrealistic villains who are total psycopathic in their lack of human concern. Guns are fired at individuals without reflection merely because they are “in the way.” Opponents must not be restrained but eliminated. In a list of five stages of conflict, the fifth stage requires that the other not just lose, but die. We do not yet know if such entertainment reflects or creates a more violent society.

11. The peaceable kingdom has existed and can exist again. Each person has the power to influence others through words. The processes of Roberts’ Rules, the legal system, and representative democracy have been understood to be sufficient to create a mostly peaceful society -- but may not be now so much. I think we have a right to live without fear of our neighbors. More guns may reduce fear of being at the mercy of others. They seem to equalize power. However, they do not reduce the fear of those with guns on the part of those without them. The possession of guns by my neighbors does not make me feel more safe.

To Blog or Not to Blog

I have been absent here for several reasons:

Some days I have little to say.
I have lots of other interests, such as performing music and watching films.
I have been posting short simple thought and comments on Facebook and in response to other blog posts.

I have been busy trying to understand the new technology. I have needed to learn a new tv, wireless bluray player, phone, mp3 player, tablet, and loading a sheet music app on the tablet. This is a major first world problem. I am thinking while doing all of this about the effect of all these changes on all of us.
I do not use Twitter. That would overload my ageing brain.

I continue to read and think about how we can speak of God today.

In the absence of the old God, I suspect that I will have more to say in weeks to come.

Christianity After Religion - Two Sermons

I was asked to preach in a traditional Presbyterian Church the last Sunday of 2012. Then I was asked to preach in a Unitarian-Universalist congregation the first Sunday of 2013. For each congregation I spoke about the many changes that have taken place and are taking place with increasing rapidity. Especially, I wanted to share with them what is happening in the larger church and within global religion. This amounts to a challenge to Presbyterians and also affirmation of freethinking that is going on there. This amounts to a celebration of  Unitarian advantage in the year ahead for the UU's, who don't always have high self-esteem among other churches and religions. I chose Diana Butler Bass’ book, Christianity after Religion: The end of church and the birth of a new spiritual awakening, as a way of approaching the subject.

There are a lot of books coming out about what is changing
in religion in the US and around the world.
[I asked the UU’s: “Have you read any books on religion or spirituality this last year?” “What have you read?” I received a big response of 20 or more books and authors, from Marcus Borg to Shirley MacLaine to Thich Nhat Hanh.]

One of the books I read this year is called Christianity after Religion.
It has been a big seller and Diana Butler Bass, the author,
is invited to dozens of churches a year to speak about her ideas.
She grew up as a Methodist and is now an Episcopalian.
I now know Diana through Facebook. [think about that:
now you can converse with the author of a book you read, on social media!]

We have known that churches are in trouble.
Now it is not just mainline Protestants.
Even the southern Baptists now report a decline.
Since 2008, megachurches aren’t so mega.

Basically, she says – Everything has changed in the church
since her early experiences 40 years ago in the ‘70's,
which covers my career in the church.
She says that now we can see that a new spiritual awakening was beginning then.
But we either didn’t see it or we misinterpreted what was going on.
There have been waves of nationalism and nativism
and religious movements that called people back to old traditions and
rear guard attacks on non-whites, women, gays, union members, and others.

But what began in the peace movement of the ‘60's has held underneath it all.
Diana sees this in the broad support for a Black president and for
willingness to move forward into a difficult future
rather than hold tight to the old ways.

A fundamental thing that has changed (that she writes about in the book)
is how Christians, Unitarians, Muslims, and Jews relate
to their churches, mosques, and synagogues, or temples.
It used to be not so long ago, that you had to believe certain things
before you could belong.
After believing the right things,
the religious institution would teach us the rituals; how to act;
how to worship and pray.
Then you could have membership and belong;

Believing, behaving, and belonging were quite rigid.
There were often strict lines between
believing what is right and believing the wrong things.
Belonging had to do with people in authority accepting you,
beyond your wanting to belong.
All these things added up to “the Christian life,” “Judaism,” “Islam.”

Now, these three things have turned upside down for most people.
People are more free and willing to choose which church they will join.
Belonging comes first.
More and more people have been looking for the spiritual side of belonging.
This has to do with finding positive relationships with others
who will help us grow.

Bass notes that Jesus did not found a church, but first formed a community.
He called disciples and did not ask what his disciples believed,
but asked them to follow him. Very basic.
Later when Jesus taught his disciples about the Kingdom,
he sent them out into the world to practice living their new vision
as if the kingdom were now.
Only later when the gospels were written,
did believing have to do with confessing that Jesus was Son of God.
Only later than that - 4th century - did believing have to do with assent
to many more propositions that obviously no one can prove.
[I say things like that to Presbyterians, too. I am prepared for discussions of systematic theology, if challenged.]

Community is still the first and most important thing about congregations.
People are building new community within and outside of old ones.
We are now at a place where the congregation that welcomes everyone
will be the one to survive and thrive.

[To the UU’s I said: Sounds like the UUA to me.
And the Uus have grown by 15% in the past decade.

In USA Today there was an article about UU growth in the south:
I thought you would like this description:
“Unitarian Universalists are a group of people who believe in organized religion
but are skeptical about doctrine.”
(Not so much organized as some others!)

Bass said about the UU in the south --
"I think there is a role for these kinds of more open and liberal spiritual groups," Bass said.
"They provide a nice counter-cultural community." (laughter)
Even up north here, that’s true.]

I think community means people need to care for each other, sometimes
even intervening in families where there is abuse and other problems.
Children are important. Anything we do for children is a great thing.
In today’s society, caring communities of the spirit need to foster
inter-generational activities.
One big learning: We can no longer live with the illusion
that we live in a closed world or system
in which our beliefs are the only true and right ones,
as if there aren’t others who think and believe differently.

[UU’s know that.]
What more can we do?
We need to learn other traditions; world religions; other practices.

Maureen Dowd, writing about the Newtown CT massacre, quoted a priest:
“I believe differently now than 30 years ago.
First, I do not expect to have all the answers,
nor do I believe that people are really looking for them.
Second, I don’t look for the hand of God to stop evil.
I don’t expect comfort to come from afar.
I really do believe that God enters the world through us....
One true thing is this: Faith is lived in family and community,
and God is experienced in family and community.
We need one another to be God’s presence.”
To me that is a big change, hearing words like those from a Roman Catholic priest.

Community still means talking with each other face to face.
And talking with those of other viewpoints.
We need not be shy or ashamed of thinking differently than did our parents.
And all of us need to continually find new words
to express our feelings about life, love, spirit, God; and truth.

[I suggested to the UU’s that the world is becoming more like them.
Anyone can feel at home in a UU congregation because of the sources of the UUA, which we read together:

1. Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
2. Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
3. Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
4. Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
5. Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
6. Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.]

(Note: As a trained Presbyterian, I see a lot of potential problems with #1, which is why I am skeptical of all spiritual renewals. Many Christians live in #4. I wish they would make more use of the rest -- #2, #3, #5, and #6.)

What Do YOU See?

The lectionary this morning is the story of a miracle.
A blind man asks for help and is given sight.
In this story Jesus credits the healing with the man’s own faith.
Stay with me on this.
We are going on a journey from unbelief to faith.
I may say some things you don’t like, but we will all win in the end.

Ever since the renaissance in the 14th century,
through the reformation in the 16th century,
and the enlightenment in the 18th century,
and the rise of science in the 20th century,
people have questioned miracle stories like this one.

There is a basic reason that fewer people believe in such miracles.
We have never seen one.
I have known a number of people blind from birth or by accident.
None of them regained their lost sight.
I had an uncle, blind from childhood.
My wife is nearly blind in one eye.
I have known many good church members in many places who were blind.
A destroyed retina or an inoperative or severed optic nerve in most cases
results in permanent blindness.
To accuse these people of a lack of faith would add insult to their injury.

Some will say that these facts make no difference.
They say that because Jesus was the Son of God,
that because he was divine, he could make the blind see.
I have a problem with that.
What kind of God would put a healing power on earth for a short time
only for the purpose of healing a few suffering people
to demonstrate the power of supernatural divinity?
That God would be a cruel God.
Not the God that Jesus taught.

So, if this is a story that could not have happened as told,
     how did it come to be?
What other meanings could it have?
We are fairly certain that Jesus did conduct a healing ministry.
We do not understand it, but not because it was supernatural
or from God in some way that we do not now experience.
There were other prophets and teachers in the first century,
in the ancient world, who healed the sick.
But the key word here is “ancient.”
This was the pre-modern world
in which there was no modern medicine as we know it.
We can understand that Jesus and others were able to heal
psychological disease caused by trauma or emotional distress.
And we understand more and more what we could call social disease –
not sexually transmitted disease – but ailments directly caused by
living conditions and by the way people have been oppressed
and treated by people with power.

Also, religion itself was different in the ancient world.
It was expected that there were gods who walked among us.
How did they know?
Because of their special powers, of course.
So anyone who was a Caesar was proclaimed a god
people told tall tales about them.
If a prophet or teacher moved you, lifted you up, made you feel accepted and free–
     you might tell such miracle stories about them.
Such stories would be and are hope producing and satisfying.

More importantly, such stories are also metaphorical.
That is, a story about blindness might be about something else.
The story of a man with demons might be symbolic of something else
going on, in the man or in the society.
The story of a man paralyzed might be about how the Roman Empire
paralyzed thinking and caring people.
The story of a woman with a discharge might be about the status of women
in the Roman Empire or the treatment they received by the Jewish law.
A great deal of the Bible cannot be understood
unless we read it as metaphor.

We all know how blindness is used as a metaphor.
In “Amazing Grace” we sing  "I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see."
The songwriter, who later in old age became blind,
wrote of blindness, as ignorance about God.
In a song called “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bob Dylan wrote
“How many times can a man turn his head,
and pretend that he just doesn't see...
How many times must a man look up, Before he can see the sky?”
John Newton wrote Amazing Grace after having been a captain of slave ships.
200 years later Dylan wrote about racism.

It’s an old proverb: “There is no one so blind as the one who will not see.”
We walk by the homeless in cities, averting our eyes
so that we will not have to think about them.

Being blind to something means not understanding or being aware of it.
A "blind spot" is an area where we cannot see in traffic.
In Jesus’ day lepers, people with skin diseases,
were sent away so they could not be seen.
In my lifetime we have done that with the mentally ill and with the dying.
We have many blind spots.

This story of healing a blind man has something to tell us
      about the concept of salvation.
Every word we use about salvation implies a problem.
The gospel of John speaks about salvation as light.
Seeing the light is a metaphor for seeing God.
If light is the answer, what is the question?
How do I find my way out of the darkness?
Darkness is a metaphor for ignorance.

Salvation has been described in the Bible and by many famous teachers
as answers to different problems:
I mentioned the line in amazing grace “I was lost but now am found.”
If we are lost, salvation is being found.
If you are lonely or isolated, salvation is belonging in community;
If you are the victim of hate or uncaring salvation is love;
If you are oppressed by tyranny, salvation is freedom and liberation.
If we are sick salvation feels like being healed.
If we see ourselves as sinners, salvation is redemption.

If we are separated from one another and from ourselves
and from our very being, from God, then salvation is reconciliation.
This is the understanding of salvation in the Confession of ‘67,
used often in the PCUSA.
Who can deny that separation and conflict and polarization
are major experiences of life’s problems in our time.
The basic meaning of salvation, however, is being made whole.
If we are feeling as if our lives or our relationships are broken,
or as if we are coming apart, then we want to be made whole.

Being healed of blindness would be being made whole.
Marcus Borg tells of many understandings of “faith” of “believing.”
One of them is of faith as a way of seeing.
So maybe regaining sight is a metaphor for coming to believe in Jesus.

The story says that his faith has given Bartimaeus sight.
This must mean that he has seen something that he could not see before.
Bartimaeus had seen something in Jesus through his encounter with him.
It’s like meeting someone and just knowing that you understand that person,
that you like that person, maybe even love that person.
Bartimaeus had understood something, he had seen something –
even before he could see.
He gained his sight by seeing Jesus truly.

If you haven’t ever done it,
you should read the gospel of Mark all the way through.
It is short. Reading it out loud takes about 2-3 hours.
Then you would see the context of the story of Bartimaeus.
It comes after three stories of Jesus on the road to Jerusalem
with his disciples.
In each case Jesus tells them that he must suffer and die.

In the first story Peter tells Jesus he won’t suffer and die.
This angers Jesus who answers that Peter isn’t seeing things
from a spiritual point of view.

In the second story some of them ignore what Jesus says,
and argue about which of them is greatest.
Jesus tells them “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all
and servant of all.” and “Whoever welcomes a child welcomes me.”

In the third story they ask him to grant them seats to his right and left
in the Kingdom.
Jesus teaches them “Whoever wants to be great must be a servant.
The son of man came not to be served but to serve.”

It is clear in these stores that they don’t understand him.
But Bartimaeus answered Jesus’ call to him.
He threw off his cloak, probably all that he had,
and asked for the one great hard thing he wanted, his sight.
He tossed aside what little security he had to ask for his need.
I think Bartimaeus understood Jesus because he was blind.

You see, faith is a way of seeing the world.
Faith in Jesus is seeing the world the way Jesus saw the world.
We know how Jeus saw the world from his teachings:
Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the peacemakers.
Blessings on all those who are not blessed in the world as we know it.
Be perfect in love: Not just don’t murder, but don’t be angry.
If anyone strikes you, turn the other cheek too.
Don’t just love those who love you, but Love your enemies.
Give without thought of whether anyone thanks you.
Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
Don’t worry about tomorrow, but seek for the K of God.
This is a very quick summary of Jesus’ teachings,
but these teachings describe a world
where justice and peace and wholeness are the norm.
It is a world where people do what is just and what is right,
for the simple reason that these things are just and right.
But it is a world upside down from the one we know.
In our world the blind and the poor and the grieving
and the peacemakers are not highly esteemed.
In our world the rich are lifted up, those who have are given more,
despair and random violence are common.
The golden rule is not about thinking of others as equal to us.
The golden rule we know is: Those who have the gold make the rules.
Bartimaeus knew why Jesus had to die.
You can’t teach these things in an empire that allows no dissent.
And Bartimaeus is the only one healed who follows Jesus afterward.

So what do we believe? What is our faith?
Which means: What do we see? How do we see the universe?
How do we see our neighbors?
How do we see people who are different from ourselves?

[preached Oct. 28, 2012 at Charlton-Freehold PC]

Education and Evaluation – Part III – Ned Flanders Shows How to Evaluate Teachers! And How Teachers Can Evaluate Themselves!

No, not that Ed Flanders. The one we are talking about here was Ned A. Flanders, director of research at the U of Michigan, who wrote Analyzing Teacher Behavior, 1970. I haven’t seen this book, but it seems to me that Flanders started from a different place and ended with a system that is much simpler and more practical than the IOTA system.


Ned A. Flanders asked “How do students and teachers interrelate in the classroom?”

Observing classroom settings Ned identified ten categories of verbal interaction, in three divisions:

A. Teacher Talk – Indirect Influence

1. Accepts Feeling (Acceptance or clarification of students’ expressed feelings, positive or negative. E.g., “I understand how you feel about bullies, John.” or “Mary, are you saying you could never forgive a cheater?”)
2. Praises or Encourages
3. Accepts or Uses Ideas of Students
4. Asks Questions

B. Teacher Talk – Direct Influence:

5. Lectures
6. Gives Directions
7. Criticizes or Justifies Authority

C. Student Talk:

8. Student Talk – Response
9. Student Talk – Initiation
10. Silence or Confusion

A teacher can record his or her class, any three minutes of it. As the teacher listens to it, he or she can write every three seconds what is heard by number. The numbers are totaled, 20 for each minute. Count the 1-4's, the 5-7's, and the 8-9's. Divide these numbers by the total number of observations to find the percentage of the teacher’s indirect, direct, and student participation. This can be done also by an observer. The goal is to increase student talk and decrease teacher talk, while increasing the teacher’s use of indirect influence over direct influence.

Dr. Flanders said: “The single most significant moment in a classroom is that ‘split second’ immediately following something said or done by a student”

Education and Evaluation – Part II – How INSTROTEACH Worked – How Objectives Were Written and How Teaching Activities Were Devised

I don’t know what is taught today about teaching activities and how students learn. Maybe what I am sharing is old hat or out of date, but many basic concepts seem to be missing from discussion of school problems and teacher evaluation in the media. Furthermore, I doubt if anyone in the churches takes teaching as seriously as it was by the educators I am describing from past decades. Most church school teachers reject any curriculum that requires planning. Thus many non-denominational (and often fundamentalist) curricula are sold which have teaching activities pre-prepared. I remember that many of the teachers who listened to us in Duluth genuinely thought of what they were doing as ministry (i.e., important) and they wanted to do it as well as possible.

I wrote yesterday how n the late ‘60's, church educators took IOTA, a secular Instrument for the Observation of Teacher Activities, and adapted it to become INSTROTEACH, the INSTRument for the Observation of TEaching Activites in the Church. In addition to R. Merwin Deever and Locke Bowman, Jr., Howard J. Demeke, Raymond E. Wochner were writers of materials. Earl Cunningham, William Hastings, Elizabeth Helz, Irving Hitt, Oscar J. Hussel, Harold Minor, Mary Stepan, and Ralph A. Strong were in the editorial group. Some of these were seminary profs in education. (I think that this field hardly exists today.)

The seven areas of teacher competence for university teachers and six for public school teachers became five for church teachers:
1. Director of Learning
2. Guide and Counselor
3. Mediator and Interpreter of the Christian Faith
4. Link with the Community
5. Participant in the Church’s Teaching Ministry.
These five areas encompass 120 statements of what a good teacher does. These are the activities that are evaluated.

There were 14 observation scales:
1. Use of Materials in Teaching
2. Opportunity for Student Participation
3. Attitude toward Opinion
4. Classroom Control
5. Developing the Physical Environment
6. Student-Teacher Planning
7. Teacher Preparation for Classroom Session
8. Variety in Learning Activities
9. Relation of Church Subject Matter to Life Situations
10. Student Inquiry into Subject Matter
11. Recognition of Learning Difficulties
12. Social Climate
13. Classroom Activities to Encourage Christian Action
14. Developing Student Skill in Interpretation of the Bible

For each scale there is a statement of greatest effectiveness. For “Use of Materials in Teaching” this statement was: “Makes effective use of a wide variety of well-selected materials provided by the church and by his own initiative.” Four other statements had less and less to say so that the worst teaching “Makes ineffective or no used of materials provided by the church.” The observer could choose the statement describing what she observes without having to think much about it.

The 13 interview scales bring out the following information:
15. Evaluation of Individual Student Progress
16. Awareness of Peer Relationships
17. Personal Relationships with Individual Students
18. Development of Student Self-Concept
19. Cooperation with Professional Church Staff in Counseling Problems
20. Participation in Life of the Church
21. Parent Orientation to Church Education
22. Use of Community Resources
23. Community Involvement
24. Program of Personal Study
25. Relation of Classroom Program to Overall Aims of Parish Education
26. Participation in Staff Planning
27. Responsibility for Improvement of Teaching Skill

The Teaching Skills Institute workshop went beyond the INSTROTEACH evaluation instrument. We learned how to identify concepts for a lesson, and to cluster and classify them so that we could write key statements about the subject. We learned how to write goals and objectives. Goals were understood as global and tell where you are going. Objectives are not what the teacher will do but what the student will be able to do as a result of the teaching activities. Verbs would include name, list, identify, write, explain, compare, contrast. The objective will be observable student behavior and may include the conditions under which the behaviors are performed and the expected quality of student performance such as accuracy. Tests were easy to create once we knew what we were trying to elicit from the students.

We learned to choose deductive or inductive teaching strategies and how to combine them. We chose "media" for activities, wrote lesson plans, and then learned a simpler system to self-analyze teacher-student interaction in the classroom, which I will detail tomorrow.

Let’s note thus far that these systems assume that teachers evaluate students on the basis of what they can do, and that teachers can be evaluated on the basis of what they do. This was helpful to me when my senior pastor wanted to evaluate me, not on what I did, but on whether or not I met his goals. His objective was to create a youth group of 50 members. My objectives were the things I would do to attain that. I could not guarantee the result he wanted. Job evaluation should be done on the basis of whether one accomplishes objectives that he or she has had a role in writing. Then you can talk about whether you have done your work and how well you have done it. We can go further – There have been efforts in the church to evaluate the total organization and its “mission,” but it’s easier to spread rumors and unhappiness with the pastor, based on personality conflicts. INSTROTEACH led to a simple way to evaluate pastors which I will explain in a few days.

Education and Evaluation – Part I – From IOTA to INSTROTEACH

With so much in the news about the Chicago Teachers’ strike, politicized criticism of teachers, increased testing of students, the evaluation of teachers by student test results, the decline of public schools and the quality of traditional education today, I decided that I needed to think about these things. I am not an educator per se, but I have my qualifications. I taught in the Chicago Public Schools, 1968-69. After seminary, in 1975, I attended a week long “Teaching Skills Institute” run by the National Education Teacher Project of Scottsdale AZ, also known as the Arizona Experiment. The teacher was Locke E. Bowman, Jr. I still have 3 booklets from the event: 70 Cues for Teachers, by Bowman, The role of the Teacher in the Church: 5 Areas of Competence, and The Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness in the Church. These booklets were produced by “INSTROTEACH,” an acronym for "INSTRument for the Observation of TEaching Activities in the CHurch." A point I hope to make is that educators in the '60's did ground-breaking and good work that seems to have been lost and forgotten. Perhaps it was only cast aside as thousands of new education academics made new studies, invented new theories, and developed new programs, not necessarily better.

The next month I became an assistant pastor at a large church in Duluth MN and immersed myself in church education. I became the chair of the Christian Education Committee of the Council of Churches. My pal was Fr. Lloyd Mudrack, who oversaw the best church resource library I ever saw. We brought INSTROTEACH to Duluth and taught church teachers to teach all around town for three years. Then I went to New Jersey and found my interests in urban problems and the peace movement. Later in the ‘90's I became Associate for Professional Development for the PCUSA and oversaw some materials and programs that related to the workshop I took in ‘75. More about that later.

These three booklets I have are rare. You can find mention of them online, but only a handful of libraries possess even a single copy. Here is what I have learned in recent weeks about them, their origin, and what I was taught in 1975:

Lucien B. Kinney taught education at Stanford. With some colleagues he developed IOTA, “Instructional Observation of Teacher Activities.” This evaluation tool grew out of the publication Teacher Competence: Its Nature and Scope by the California Teachers Association. It became widely used in California, Arizona, and other parts of the west. Kinney and his cohorts listed 123 things a good teacher does. They categorized them in 7 roles:
     1. Director of Learning.
     2. Counselor and Advisor.
     3. Mediator of the Culture.
     4. Link with the Public.
     5. Member of the Faculty.
     6. Member of the Teaching Profession.
     7. Member of an Academic Discipline.
There were 28 teaching activities or scales, each of which included five levels of teacher performance. 13 scales were used in classroom observation and 15 graded by teacher responses in an interview.

R. Merwin Deever taught at Arizona State. His work with IOTA led him into a group that was concerned with teacher education in the churches. It is difficult to imagine today the great works that were undertaken in the post WWII years by the churches in the area of education. I reprint here an letter by Locke Bowman Jr. explaining this. The letter is published online by Tom Rightmyer, a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina. Tom says “Dr. Bowman retired in 2002 as the Executive Secretary of the General Board of Examining Chaplains of the Episcopal Church and Administrator of the General Ordination Examination. I served as a staff member of the General Board and assisted in writing, administering, and evaluating student responses to the Examination from 1990 to 2002. [I think I saw a notice of Locke’s death in 2011.]

Dear Tom:
        Here is what I would say to the person who directed a query to you about  church education 1945-1950+. This was a time of great ferment in all the Protestant churches. The Continental theologies had begun to affect seriously the curricula of all the theological seminaries, so that names like Barth, Brunner (Emil), Tillich, and Niebuhr were on everyone's lips, it seemed.
        The Presbyterians were the pioneers in developing teaching materials for use in the churches that would reflect the best educational theories and also focus seriously on theology. After a famous Long Island conference of leaders in the Church, they launched the "Christian Faith and Life" curriculum, sub-titled "A Program for Church and Home." This material was hailed by the New York Times education editor as the most significant publishing venture in the "history of Christendom." Hardback books for students were produced, and magazines were published for use jointly by parents in their homes and teachers in church classrooms. The curriculum was organized in a three-year cycle: Jesus Christ, Bible, and Church. The underpinning for this approach was Karl Barth's dogmatic, focusing on "the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ; the Word revealed in Holy Scripture; and the Word proclaimed and lived in the Church." 
Educational methodology was pedagogical--a serious teacher-student encounter focused on content. The Faith and Life curriculum appeared in 1948, and it was a huge success financially. Large numbers of Episcopal congregations purchased the materials. The curriculum, continually revised, continued until 1970 when it was replaced by a new approach called "Christian Faith and Action" (now superceded by other efforts).
        The Episcopalians watched the Presbyterian developments with keen interest and began to explore the idea of a national curriculum produced in New York. A series of false starts delayed their work, but finally the General Convention directed that work should begin. By 1957, the Seabury Series had appeared. (The Seabury Press was established specifically for the purpose of publishing the curriculum.) The Series also featured student books, some of them hardbacks, and there were classroom materials for teachers and students. The theology behind the
material was primarily Tillichian. 
        Emphasis was on combining theological reflection with a focus on group process. Churches were required to engage in training before the materials could be used. A typical class group would include a teaching team and a process observer. Emphasis was placed also on combining the educational ministry with the developing "family services" in Episcopal parishes. Growing suburban congregations were special targets of this approach.
        The Seabury Series fell into disuse in the 1970s and was not replaced. Seabury Press struggled along until about 1986 when it went out of business also. This was the Episcopal Church's first and last venture into national curriculum production. In 1985 an effort began to study Christian education in the church, and a task group reported to the General Convention in 1988. No recommendations were made concerning curriculum.
        The period after World War II also brought other churches into the discussions of effective Christian education--especially the Methodists, the Lutherans, and other denominations. [Southern Baptists continued to be the largest producers and consumers of teaching materials, but they marched to their own drummer and had little to do with any ecumenical efforts.] The Roman Catholics were in the Dark Ages until after Vatican II when they came to life after the American bishops issued a paper, "To Teach As Jesus Did." That resulted in modern curricular efforts that looked much like the Presbyterian and Episcopal efforts of earlier decades.
        Regrettably, few books are extant that reflect adequately the whole ferment of the post-World War II period. I would, however, recommend that these authors be explored: Randolph Crump Miller, distinguished professor of religious education at Yale Divinity School, who wrote extensively in the 1950s. As a priest of the Church, he epitomized Episcopal thinking at the time. Another seminal book widely read and earnestly discussed was "The Church Must Teach or Die," by James Smart (first editor in chief of the Presbyterian Faith and Life venture). These two authors and their bibliographies will lead any serious student to the heart of the issues for that post-War era.
        Hoping to be helpful, I remain sincerely,
        Locke E. Bowman, Jr., Professor  of Christian Education emeritus, Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria.

My spouse and I both grew up with Christian Faith and Life, and fought to keep Christian Faith and Action when it was attacked in the ‘70's. Books by Miller and Smart had places on my bookshelves. I would like to see the Seabury Series – Tillich appeals to me more than Barth. I also welcome any additional information on this history of these developments. I still need to describe INSTROTEACH, the work of Ned A. Flanders, and the work of the old Vocations Agency of the UPCUSA.