God Is Not A Story Problem

This is a follow-up to Friday’s article (Crushing Creativity And Curiosity At Church).

How do you “learn” about God?

Remember “story problems” in math class?

Story problems were supposed to show that you could “apply” what you “learned.” You had to determine the key words and produce the right answer to an inane question.

Story problems were designed to enrich the subject and show you that math was relevant. Of course they usually dealt with situations nobody actually cared about, which mostly reinforced the notion that math had little to do with real life.

Real problems, the kind of problems we actually encounter and care about, are messy. There’s rarely a single right answer and almost never a universal, step-by-step solution. Real problems just aren’t as simplistic as story problems.

Math classes use artificial story problems because they “fit” and neatly reinforce a particular process. Teachers like them because they’re predictable and comfortable—there’s one right answer and one proper way to get that answer. Problems that don’t fit aren’t even considered.

Story problems taught kids that math was about knowing facts, memorizing rules, and cranking out right answers. No wonder they thought math was boring and irrelevant.

Does church do that?

I wonder if church turns learning about God into a sort of artificial story problem.

I wonder if church makes learning about God a comfortably predictable process of knowing the right facts, memorizing rules, and regurgitating pat answers. I wonder if that’s one reason so many folks perceive church as irrelevant and boring and simplistic.

As a teacher I always used a simplified version of Bloom’s Taxonomy to show my students that learning was about more than knowledge (memorizing facts) and straightforward application (solving story problems). Real learning—learning that matters—must involve analyzing and creating.

Every preacher talks about integrating faith into every part of our lives, making God part of Monday as well as Sunday. That’s a big behavior change, which is my working definition of real learning. And real behavior changes can’t happen at the knowing and applying levels.

Thing is—analyzing and creating are messy and unpredictable. People ask hard questions that challenge your thinking, your opinions, and even some of your most closely-held beliefs. If you encourage folks to express curiosity, you get doubts and alternative views and solutions you never considered.

If you’re serious you have to really listen and contemplate those alternatives. You have to accept, and even encourage, approaches you don’t like. You can’t react with simplistic platitudes. You have to be okay with “I don’t know.”

This doesn’t mean “anything goes.” Truth and right theology matter. But I believe we broaden our notions about absolute truth to include a lot of opinions about which committed followers of Jesus can sincerely disagree.

Be careful what you ask for

If you want genuine curiosity and creativity you have to know the difference between core values and preferences. You have to care more about the best result than a pre-conceived “proper” process. And that means you have to be clear about what you’re really trying to accomplish.

We claim we want people to be “real” about their faith. But I sense that certain social and political views simply aren’t acceptable. We marginalize and dismiss those who ask uncomfortable questions or who don’t conform to a narrow notion of what it means to “be Christian.”

I knew kids who worked long and hard to discover unconventional approaches. Their alternatives often demonstrated more thought and deeper understanding that those who mimicked the standard methods, and many teachers dismissed or even mocked them.

Here’s a test—you fill in the blanks.