A Spiritual Walk Together

This site presents spiritual ideas and theological concepts and ruminations as derived from experiences within religious communities formed by covenants and shaped by the Western tradition of liberal religion in general and Unitarian Universalism in particular.

Name:
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States

Visiting Professor of Liberal Studies at Grand Valley State University, Michigan

Monday, April 25, 2011

Liberal Education and Liberal Religion

The similarities in “methodology” or approach between liberal education and liberal religion lure some to mistake one for the other. Thus, it is not uncommon for those in various traditions within liberal religion – as in my own Unitarian Universalism, for instance – to think it inconceivable that one could lift up liberal education and hold a “conservative” or “orthodox“ faith. But, the purview of faith and of education do not pertain to the same field of human nature and conduct. Ironically, I am finding it is not unusual in the academic world to wonder how one could be enmeshed in liberal education and be religious at all. The wonder is how they could be compatible let alone complimentary.


These observations merely lift up the uneasy relationship between faith and learning, the spiritual and the educational, in the world of the liberal. There is not that same ambivalence or confusion within scholasticism – liberal education’s rival – because the relationship between faith and learning is clear in terms of accountability. Scholasticism views learning and education as a servant of faith in that matters of faith shape what subjects are of interest and how they are to be pursued. Philosophy and science are the handmaidens of Truth, and Truth the yield of religion. Identify the interests of religion and the life of faith, and one will have found the direction any educational endeavor need take.


But the relationship between faith and learning within liberalism is different.


Every fact learned and theory pursued serves faith in building confidence and trust in existence by routing error, in the case of science; or exposing hubris, in the case of the humanities. The liberal, whether in education or religion, is always on the lookout for idolatry; that is, our ever-present tendency to latch on to some idea, concept, faith, or doctrine as if it were worthy of absolute faith, and is the final and complete word! It is as prevalent in education as it is in religion, this urge to orthodoxy. All things of this world, including religion and education and the products of each, are finite and limited and not worthy objects of ultimate allegiance. Liberal faith offers a confidence that only those within the scope and influence of the spiritual hold: that the Ultimate, God, will never be captured by our thoughts and concepts and interpretations. God is elusive to the ways of human knowing and believing. Every idea contains human self-interest. Yet, there is faith. Liberal religion carries along an assurance, unverifiable by means of education, that existence, for all its calamity, will be resolved at last. And, that it is God’s domain to resolve what needs be resolved.


Yet, both liberal education and liberal religion lift up one quality consistent to both: liberalis, freedom, broadmindedness, generosity, and tolerance. Education is valuable in proportion to its liberating affect upon the mind. Faith is valuable in proportion to freeing the mind and heart to live more generously with regard to one’s fellow human beings, and more broadly with regard to the way all existence and all living things have been created in Love. Whatever is the resolution that is the domain of the Ultimate, freedom is its aim.

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