Experiences as a Student - Will Tyler

While I am an intern here at Calvary Church for the summer months, I was asked to write  about my Bible School experience at Providence University College. I'd like to give you a glimpse into my life the past two years, as well as into the world of Christian secondary education. I am writing this as someone who desires to always submit to the authority of the Scriptures, as well as someone who wishes the best for Christian Education. I have faith that these institutions will build faith-filled men and women who live to do the will of the Father in their lives. There are many ways that these institutions excel at this goal, yet there are some that I believe need to be corrected through the Word and given life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now you may be asking yourself, ‘why should I read this? This intern’s experience has no bearing on the way that I practice my faith or the way I live my life. I would ask you to consider two things: first of all, the people who are now attending these institutions are the ones who will be taking over for the pastors and Christian leaders we have today. So, if you want people who are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and zealously desire to preach sound doctrine, it is in your best interest to learn what is being taught, because what is being taught will eventually lead to what you and your families are being taught about the faith. Second, it may benefit your own faith journey to learn what others are thinking about the faith, and may open your minds to new perspectives you have never heard before.

SPOILER ALERT

Spoiler alert, my time in Christian Secondary Education has not always been so encouraging. When I say this, I want to be clear that I am not against these institutions, rather I pray for these institutions, and I am encouraged by the majority of professors and staff who do their jobs well. I don’t want to come off like a Pharisee, casting stones at someone who is a sinner just like I am. Rather I say these things as a man who doesn’t even know the depth of my own sin, also begging these institutions to fix their eyes on what is true and good so that Jesus’ name may be glorified in the people these institutions develop.

LOTS TO BE GRATEFUL FOR

With this warning out of the way, I want to talk about one of the great things I learned during Christian Secondary Education, which is learning to look at Bible stories not just from the perspective of the main character of the story, but also learning to critically look at the different perspectives within the story. Now to a certain extent we naturally do this as readers of the Scriptures, but the focus on understanding who these people were in their own cultures was eye opening. It is a practice you can easily adopt into your own reading of scripture, however it’s not like having a PhD professor going over artifacts and explaining the culture of the day. Intentionally trying to see the stories through ancient eyes leads to readers having to ask big questions about the will of God, especially why events transpired the way they did, and why the stories are recorded the way they were.  I’ve been exposed to tough questions, such as was the invasion of Canaan an act of genocide? Learning to ask these hard questions is definitely a beneficial product of Christian Secondary Education, and the desire  to understand the scriptures deeply is something that needs to be taught.

In my experience, some professors have a tendency to bring up such problems, administer modern worldviews to such problems, and blame God for not stopping them or not doing things properly. Some professors even scan for the littlest details that will support something the rest of the Bible does not support, which is clearly unhelpful for students trying to pursue God’s call in their lives. However, the vast majority of professors will bring up difficult questions and seek to truly find answers that actually fit into what the rest of scripture teaches, and truly show how God was working events through His providence.

Another very positive aspect was many Professors’ desire to focus on Church history and Church traditions. Now coming from a contemporary church many people will start rioting upon reading the last sentence, especially the part about traditions. But before you start hunting me down next Sunday, hear me out. Christian traditions aren’t always legalistic traps that keep us from experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit. Oftentimes God uses our old traditions to show up in new and unpredictable ways. Many of you probably have traditions of your own when it comes to the faith, whether it be celebrating important Christian dates, like Christmas (Christians have been celebrating Christmas since the 9th century), Easter, and Pentecost or more personal dates like when you were baptized. Maybe you practice such traditions as having a day of   Sabbath rest every seven days, praying before meals or before you go to bed . Or maybe you fast at specific times every year like Lent, or in January like our church used to do. These traditions can be supremely beneficial for the church.

Now we need to be careful not to say that failing to participate in a tradition is a sin, or that God only acts through traditions because that is where we take away actual hope for God to act, and it’s just clearly untrue. Instead we need to be thankful for these traditions we do have as a community of believers and expect God to act in these traditions that we hold. Traditions bind us together as Christians and help us experience God in community. For example ,look at the tradition of praying before supper, this tradition is practiced so that all at the table take time to thank God for the provisions He has blessed the family with. Everyone at the table is unified in this thankfulness whether they are young, old, male, or female. Now often this tradition just turns into an inconvenience for the hungry people trying to eat food, but if this was practiced in the Spirit, it would be a great way to thank God for everything He has blessed the family with throughout the day. Christian traditions are taught really well, and learning to understand them is something I think the modern church could really learn from, after all traditions that have been passed on through history often have deep good meanings which is why they have thus been passed on, and why we need to learn how to distinguish between harmful traditions and good traditions, instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I really appreciate how much I’m learning about Church history. Please, I beg whoever reads this to learn as much as you can about Church history. You will not believe how important this information is. I had the privilege to take Church history classes, but I think Church history was brought up in just about every theological and biblical studies lecture. Church history shows us how the church developed through time. It also shows us why we think about theology the way we do. For example, if you ever wonder who started this idea of purely worshiping God, you should google Zwingli and Calvin and see why simplicity and modesty in worship was extremely important to them. If you wonder why churches in Southeast Manitoba are so architecturally boring, you’ll have to look through the Protestant Reformation and how they viewed Catholic buildings, and then follow the Reformation through the anabaptists.

Church history affects so much of contemporary Christianity and our theological reasonings, that it is almost impossible to have a new Christian idea. Christian history helps us explain what Christian beliefs are and what aren’t. For example, the apostle’s creed is like an ancient statement of faith that declares things like belief in the trinity and the gospel of Jesus, are needed to be considered a Christian. This ancient document explains why even though different denominations like Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox can all be considered Christians, groups like Mormonism and Jehovah’s  Witnesses can not be and are instead considered heresies. (It’s because the Protestants, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox all believe in the trinity and in the gospel of Jesus, while Mormons and Jehovah’s witnesses don’t believe in the trinity and believe Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not fully God).

Church history also gives us many people to look at as heroes of the faith. All this to say that Christian Secondary education just teaches Church history so well, and shows why it is so important and how it effects us.

Another good thing these institutions do is they are able to talk about what Christianity has messed up in the past. Sometimes pastors and people inside the church try to find ways to defend atrocities that happened (although no one at Calvary, don’t worry) but in my experience, these institutions try to be extremely honest and critical and often state that people messed up, they got the Christian message wrong, they used heresies to accomplish sinful acts. Along with this they also do a great job at loving a diverse number of cultures very well.

The last good thing that I’ll address is the Post secondary institutions desire to reform Christendom. A desire to fix what is wrong in our modern theological ideas and practices is a very good desire, we need to be able to realize where traditions and beliefs may have been led astray. However, there is also great danger to this reforming as well, particularly over the disagreements on how to do so. For example, many Professors are quick to point out how political Christianity has become, where your belief in Christianity has become a flag for who you will vote for in the next election. They are often critical of conservatives (Canada) and republicans (USA) who have used Christianity as a way to ensure votes and grow a loyal following. This is very true, too many Christians believe that the conservatives need to be in office for God to act. That said, often Professors will complain about the political right, then glorify the political left, which can feel jarring because of the numerous unchristian ideas that the political left tends to pioneer and celebrate, such as abortion. Personally I believe that when people complain about other’s political beliefs and how bad the nation is getting and blame it on a specific party, our reaction as Christians should be, ‘no, it’s not the work of a specific party that is destroying everything, its sin’. Sin destroys everything it can get its hands on, it has gotten its way into the political sphere because the authority of the Church in people’s lives has largely disappeared.

THINGS TO BE PRAYING FOR

Having shared things I’m grateful for, I would also like to share some things that concern or grieve me, and invite you to pray.  It can often feel like these institutions  just broke your heart because their desire to love often undercuts the truth. One of my high school teachers said it best: he compared the extremes in our culture to the swing of a pendulum, truth rests in the middle  but the culture swings constantly from one extreme to the next. Some institutions only speak the truth but forget to love, and others remember to love but in doing so forget the truth. Biblically,  it is impossible to have one without the other; truth teaches us why we should love (imitation God’s love for us in Christ), and real love relies on the truth (because love wants others to find the truth about Jesus so that they may be saved). But when we abandon truth so that we can love we often get into a very dangerous place. I feel that some professors, and I need to stress the word ‘some’, would rather argue parts about scripture away than accept it as a truth we need to learn to understand. They’d rather explain why Paul (and the Holy Spirit speaking through him) is wrong than contend with the idea that he actually may have a point about why Christians should live the way he stresses. In a desire to love, some grab onto cultural doctrines like intersectionality and explain it as a Biblical truth. In a desire to love diverse lifestyles, they accept non-scriptural views on such lifestyles. In a desire to love women they say that men are oppressive, and that Christians should battle the patriarchy, even going so far as to battle what scripture says (I’m definitely not saying Christian men are currently fulfilling their duties, and I would like to write yet what I believe the standards for men should be, let me warn you my standards for men are often seen as extreme). In a desire to love they distort Bible stories to fulfill their own agendas. I have to be clear that this is not all teachers and professors, most of teachers I met strived to understand the Bible, but there are a few that would rather complain that certain passages of Scripture are oppressive or are made up by the writers of the book, rather than strive to understand why the Holy Spirit has inspired and kept these books in the Bible.

My interactions and classes with the many different Professors and teachers where actually some of my favourite experiences in the Providence atmosphere. However, the thing that alarmed me the most was talking to students who claimed to have a relationship with Jesus or to be Christians, but lived and advocated for so many ideas that are never mentioned in scripture or any other Christian doctrine, theology, tradition, or philosophy. Let me give you an example, in my introduction to theology course, that to be fair everyone has to take so I knew it would be a little different than what I was used to, I was paired up in a group with four students. We all met up in one of the classrooms to discuss what our topic would be and how we’d spread out the work. We got into the classroom and one person in the group asked just to be sure if we were we all Christians, and everyone in the group said yes. This is an important distinction to make because some people may go to Providence for other reasons than wanting a Christian atmosphere, which is perfectly fair with classes like business and psychology, for some it may make sense to sit through some Christian courses to get the Providence degree.

When they all said yes, I mistakenly put my guard down, and assumed that this wouldn’t be as hard an assignment as I thought. The first person started to list off ideas, and stated abortion, and me thinking all Christians are all on the same page about this issue (just because literally every denomination of Protestant, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox all agree), said “oh that might be an interesting topic.” You see I did not yet know that I had stepped on a land mine. The very next words out of their mouth were “alright how do we argue that we support abortion.” My mind paused in disbelief, as the whole group started to chime in ideas. I stated, “I don’t support abortion, but I’m interested into why you guys think Christians should.” This was immediately followed by ideas like well it's the woman’s choice, never says in the Bible not to have an abortion, and there was some more ideas that I don’t recall. Another person in the group asked me “why do you not support abortion.” I stated some arguments I had heard about the issue, along with verses about God caring for or even using the unborn, one person said, “I’ve never thought of it like that before,” and I think the rest of the group just decided to move on to a different issue. This interaction has always stuck with me and I still finding troubling to the core. Now this has nothing to do with the University staff or faculty, obviously they can’t control what these people believe, but I think it’s important to note for the members of the church who may be thinking about going to Christian Post Secondary, you still have to be responsible for what you believe. Your professors and teachers can teach you everything they know, but if you're living in sin and not pursuing Jesus you are not going to grow in your relationship with Christ, no matter how good your teachers are.

CONCLUSION

So, in conclusion, I believe that people who are wanting to attend Christian Post Secondary definitely should. As a matter of fact, I would argue even if you are not planning to get a degree, it may be beneficial for your own knowledge to even go and take a class or two, and I would personally recommend any Church History courses. However, you cannot rely on these institutions to give you a relationship with Christ if that’s what you’re looking for you will not find it in an institution. These institutions cannot give you a love for the Scriptures although they can help you read it better. These institutions can’t make you live out the Christian message, but they can show you what the Christian message is and how to think about it. As in everything in life, learn to examine through the Scriptures. If someone is good and trustworthy, the Scriptures will prove their point. Just look at Paul with the Berean Jews; “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men (Acts 17:11).” Luke (the author of Acts) calls these Berean Jews more noble than the Jews of Thessalonica because they examined everything through the Scriptures, and not by tradition, political beliefs, or feelings. So, if someone is telling you something and you can’t provide an answer from Scripture go and find what the Scriptures say about that topic, and follow whatever the Scriptures say. If you adopt this mindset Christian Post secondary will be a time where you meet many new friends, and get to learn, and answer your deepest questions and concerns.