In 2018, at least thirteen percent of all U.S. adults were former Catholics. What has happened to our religious formation? I’m sure blame and excuses abound. Some say, “We need more conformity to orthodoxy,” but orthodoxy is not the key to salvation. We hear today, “Well, I’m spiritual but not religious!” Among other things it shows we have done a poor job integrating religion and spirituality and demonstrates how narrowly people understand what religion is (institutional, confining, authoritarian … you know the drill).

Religious education never ends. I know very well – growing up in a pre-Vatican II Church – that there was a conception that our religious education ended when we were confirmed or when we finished Catholic school. With all that has transpired in the Church since I was a kid, that myth mercifully has been laid to rest.

I’m sure you remember the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). What does that story have to do with education? It may be a stretch but those that built the tower had problems with communication not with engineering. And that’s what we deal with when we speak of adult religious education… communication and not logistics.

Someone (apparently not Einstein) once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Can we afford to continue the same educational processes and methodologies, and yet expect a different result? Be mindful that education is not just schooling. The Church (churches) concretely and intentionally must take more seriously the importance of life-long learning and put more emphasis on creating a ‘people of God” who are adult disciples.

For Christians – I speak as a Christian and a teacher – Jesus is the model teacher… “the Way, the Truth, the Life” (John 14:6). Christianity is an adult religion. We don’t find Jesus teaching children, but he is always challenging the adults, no matter what their status, education or ability. It seems to follow that it is not what the Church says which leads to truth as much as it is the environment it creates to know and experience The Truth.

Jesus used parables to teach. Parables were and are, according to some scholars, subversive teachings, meant to undermine the complacency of the religious status quo. What kind of environment did/do the parables create? They were not meant to be pious stories to make us feel good. As Church, our teaching function should have more to do with encouraging the right process, creating the right environment and less with schooling people in the right answers.

Since the 1970s, the vision of catechesis/religious education or formation must have adult faith formation at its center. Adult Faith Formation depends on the quality of church/synagogue life for nourishment and growth. We at Project Genesis Interfaith have taken on the mission to supply adults with stimuli and support to promote openness to dialogue and, hopefully, faith development.

 

Donald Russo, Ph.D.