(By Steve Salyards, The GA Junkie). As the magical date of October 31, 2017, rapidly approaches the opportunities around Reformation 500 abound. In particular, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has gone all-in and, as you can see from this article, has an opportunity with many of their ministries and programs to celebrate the anniversary. It may be a bit of overkill, but remember that their unofficial motto is now “We are not dying. We are reforming” so there is some sense to it.
Among these resources are curricula for every age group including “The Protestant Reformations” for adults, “The Protestant Reformation” for youth and young adults, and for ages 5-10 a one Sunday lesson as part of the “Growing in Grace and Gratitude” curriculum titled “Luther Learns from Paul.” That last one you can download and look at for free so I downloaded a copy and what follows are some of my thoughts about it.
Bottom line: Generally a nice, age-appropriate overview of Martin Luther’s journey and thinking that led to his work to reform the church. But, I have to add that in my opinion in constructing this curriculum they have missed an opportunity to more fully demonstrate Luther’s ideas and have perpetuated a common and subtle error. Back to that in a minute.
Now, before I go further it is helpful if I make two disclaimers that you should keep in mind as I go through this review. The first is that I am involved in higher education and not elementary education so I will be expressing my personal opinion about age-appropriate content which is not technically a professional opinion at this level. Second, my background in higher education manifested itself as “teaching up” to my own children as they were growing up and the bottom line I will come to at the end is predicated on my own experience with family discussions and what our children experienced and participated in. (We have a standing joke with good friends of ours, also involved in higher education, that “Other families don’t have these discussions at dinner, do they?”)
So with that, let’s dive in.
As I indicated above, this is a curriculum for ages 5-10. While there are some sections which refer to an activity or approach for the older or younger children, for the most part the material is the same across the whole age range. The lesson follows a traditional lesson plan with a welcoming and gathering activity, a brief worship section, the story with preparing and reflecting questions and discussion, and a selection of responding activities that are participatory for the children. The scripture passage for the lesson is Ephesians 2:1-10 with an emphasis on the portion that says “…God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love God has for us, saved us by grace.” The story tracks the life of Martin Luther from childhood, through his thunderstorm experience, his journey into the monastery, his challenge to the sale of indulgences and finally to his nailing the 95 theses to the castle church door.
The object lesson from the story and activities seems to be well presented and has good focus on the important truth that Grace is a gift from God and that there is nothing we can do to earn it or attain it by ourselves. So it strikes me as overall a nice lesson that helps to teach the scriptural lesson and historical context of Reformation Sunday.
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History as a subject in the contemporary administrative state PCUSA is indeed a complex issue. One has to first deal with how the academic Left treats and processes history and in that matter on must acknowledge two trends in academia and the establishment. First is what has been called ‘inter-sectionalism” or the trend to take the supposed historical narrative of ‘oppressed people’ in the past and find commonality with contemporary or hot button matters of today. The other is the trend to read back into history contemporary notions of race, gender, justice, moral and ethical norms and judge the actions and behaviors of dead people by contemporary factors. Hence Columbus Day falls out of fashion for “Indigenous Peoples” day. Certain Civil War Generals and their images are now good, others now bad, and the attempt to physically remove those symbols from the public square. As Stalin would do to old Soviets who fell out of favor with the Party.
At some point in time the PCUSA or whatever it is, will attempt to “reform” Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and especially Knox, who would have sooner sent Elizabeth 1 to the gallows, than channel peace or love. In PCUSA and Leftist cosmology, ‘history’, religious or otherwise, or that which is past needs either revision or expunging all together. You see this in their attempt to rewrite Jesus as the 1st advocate for LGBTQ rights and Paul a bad person for not going on hunger strikes to free the Roman slaves and had problems with women.
Again, history for the administrative state PCUSA and its academic arms is like putty. You mold it and shape it to fit whatever the flavor of the month may be. Again ,buyer beware.