Corey Widmer, The Trial of the Incarnation

My family is a part of a community of friends who have all taken up residence in the same neighborhood in the inner city of Richmond. One of the questions that I probably most frequently get asked by my suburban friends is what we plan to do about schooling for our kids. The schools in our neighborhood are some of the very worst in the whole city. And although the issue has not become acute, many of us have babies and the question is certainly impending.

I usually say that I don’t know what we’re going to do, but that I take comfort in knowing that there is a whole community of us who will be thinking through the decision together. But recently I have been thinking about the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, one of the main theological impetuses that led us to live in our neighborhood. God did not stand aloof and loft vouchers and educational programs into our failing public systems – he came down into the muck, taking on our brokenness as his own, ultimately bearing it to his own grave.

What would I communicate to my neighbors if we chose to send our children out of the neighborhood to private schools? The Incarnation compels us to bear the burdens of our broken community with our neighbors. We say to them: your schools are our schools; your crime is our crime; your corner store is our corner store; your streets are our streets.

Some friends say, Will you make your children sacrifice for your idealistic cause? I hope that’s not what we’re doing. I do hope our children will desire themselves to follow in the path of Jesus and what that means in this particular neighborhood. I hope that they will find joy in the trial of the Incarnation that calls all of us down into the muck.

© Corey Widmer

Comments

[Glenn]

Corey,
Your post reminds of when Piper came to RTS-Orlando for a week. He mentioned that a lot of young Reformed studs (not his word) pastors and soon-to-be seminary grads would candidate for job openings at his church in Minneapolis. Regarding those that were invited to an interview he said, "Why.....why do they make it their FIRST question? I understand the question. I'm not opposed to the question. But why does it have to be the FIRST question out of their mouths?"

The question the pastor candidates ask Piper? "Will my children be safe in this neighborhood?"

I've never been there, but apparently Bethlehem Baptist is not in a great neighborhood. Piper says he has no need for seeing violence, gangs, and gunfights on TV because he has them in his neighborhood.

I don't want to over-infer from his brief remarks, but it *seemed* he was saying that these stalwart, theologically DEEP Calvinistic Baptists pastors and seminarians, were highly attuned to safety and comfort. I could be wrong but I thought he was saying to us at RTS-- "You *say* you believe in the sovereignty of God. You *say* the Arminians are wrong. You *say* that you are into studying the Scriptures, true discipleship, marks of the Church, depth, and all that....but you ask the same fearful questions that your theological adversaries ask. Would someone who LIVES and DEPENDS upon God please come candidate for a job at my church."

[Alex]

Corey & Glenn:

I love your articles. I have some questions about this matter that I hesitate to write because I resist being perceived as a warrior for a cause. Also, I have absolutely no opinion on how anyone should educate their kids, and I don’t even know how we’ll educate our own kids. So please take my thoughts and question as genuine attempts to learn from your response(s), not as me trying to assert any insight.

Does the model of incarnation supercede the threat of sending our kids for their formative years into an environment in which Jesus is systematically ignored? I wonder this partially because incarnation seems like more of a general concept, whereas the Bible has the specific statement: “’Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’”

I admire that Piper doesn’t obsess over physical safety. But he does seem extremely concerned with the fact that schools won’t make explicit connections between their subjects and Jesus. Do you think the incarnational ministry of Christians sending their kids to public education will redeem the public education system to the point where it acknowledges Jesus and teaches the fear of the Lord? I fear these often aren’t even viewed as relevant goals in the process of redeeming education, but I could be wrong.

[Beth]

There's something to be said for homeschooling, too, if you are worried about what Alex said--Jesus being systematically ignored in the public school system. It is a way to maintain presence within the community where you live, but also to be sure that their values are being shaped by you (the parents) and the church, rather than by their peers (which is very common for kids in school).

[brad]

I have six kids and we live at times with strangers in our home. The question is what do you want your kids to learn is Godliness. Is it Godly to avoid the beaten up people of the world and move to the other side of the street or is it best to draw near to the broken and bind their wounds. If we teach the former, we teach our children a gospel of worldy comfort and isolation, but if we teach the latter we teach the compassion and love of God. Sure there is a price to teach this about God but if God had been this protective of His Son, Jesus would never have moved to our neighborhood and suffered with and for us.

[bumble]

I am a wimp. Let me started with that before the conversation eventhough I might have rationalized for sending my kid to private school at length over: http://i12know.that1.name/2004/09/09/the-cyclical-pattern-of-faith-intersecting-culture/

I have a question with the Incarnation proposal: In God's case, He had Jesus consent. In our case, we need to be reasonable with our kids. May be this is why the missionaries have boarding school for their MK kids?

[Corey Widmer]

Thanks for everyone's good thoughts on this. Interesting that this has developed into a conversation about schooling and education. I don't have a whole lot of expertise in this area, but I will say that I do find the attitudes and philosophies of education of some Christian parents who homeschool to be theologically dissonant with incarnational theology. Some of the concerns and fears that seem to drive the homeschooling movement, or even the Christian private school movement, is that our kids will somehow get morally corrupted in the public systems. I just listened yeterday to a big story on npr about a forceful movement within the Southern Baptist denomination to pull all their children out of the public schools because they are not consonant with Christian values. One of the factors that has prevented this decision from happening is one or two pastors who give a really strong argument for why such a withdrawal would be a betrayal of their calling: the calling to be salt and light. And as one of the pastors put it, what would they be communicating to the many Southern baptists who teach in the public schools and have positions of influence there? I am convinced that the cumulative effect would be much greater for the Kingdom of God if a mass of parents poured themselves into the public systems despite the fears of getting "dirty", rather than if a mass of parents left and took their kids with them and ensured their moral purity.

That being said, I am not a die-hard believer in public schools and am not convinced that a parent must send their kids to them simply on principle. This requires wisdom, not rules. If you're in a neighborhood where no redeeming value at all is in the public system and there is no possibility of it for the future, it probably isn't a good idea to send your kids into such a quagmire. However, I am a die-hard believer in the fact that it is a Christian parent's duty, in such situations, to be just as concerned about the welfare of all the children in the neighborhood and not just their own. If we truly decide that a public system is not good enough for our own children, then it is not good enough for our neighbors as well. Maybe it means working to get a tutoring program started, maybe it means banding together some parents to start a charter school. But the incarnation compels us beyond the American obsession with strict personal advancement, in this case as it percolates through our concern for our children.

[Alex]

Convicting stuff, thanks! Great quote: "But the incarnation compels us beyond the American obsession with strict personal advancement, in this case as it percolates through our concern for our children."

[Glenn]

Uh-oh. Corey mentioned homeschooling and dissonant in the same sentence. We could be in for a torrent of homeschool mom chastisement. :)

[iMonk]

This is a question that I have to deal with constantly in our ministry in SE Ky. www.oneidaschool.org. We have 150 staff. Many couples with children. Not only are we in the 6th poorest country in America, but our school specializes in kids who have issues/problems (in many cases.) Every year some family decides they can't work with us because they need to take their kids home and not have them exposed to the people God sends us to love and teach in the name of Christ. This is esp a struggle for many of our homeschoolers, who balk at the CHristian day care we have established for our staff, but with having their children hear profanity, secular music, etc.

I continually stress the incarnation, and I continually stress that it is at the level of "family values" that we often have to face some suburban idolatries that we don't want to admit. Wanting the "best" for our children is an assertion that needs to be examined by any American parent. What does that mean? What is that lifestyle turning out for the people who choose it?

My children both grew up here and went to school all twelve years here. They are committed, missional, incarnational Christians without all the suburban, consumerist addictions. Thank God for the mission field! It was a blessing to my family.