On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom

by David I. Smith

It was as if one were focused on cutting stone blocks into perfectly square shapes while the other knew that he was helping to build a cathedral.

Belcher confesses that despite long reflection on Bonhoeffer’s book, it had not become clear to him that the practices described in it were themselves the mode of engagement within which it offered its lessons. He sought the transformation of his congregation through exhortation but not through institution of new practices.

The goal is not to find some technique that Christians can copyright. The goal is to shape a set of practices that are as consistent as we can manage with the story of all things made new as the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.3