state of religious education

I have realized lately the sad state of people’s understanding of Christian beliefs. I have seen many people of varied backgrounds, many living their whole life around the church, have murky if not simply wrong beliefs about the basic tenets of faith. I’m not saying that I expect everyone to have deep theological education, spending much time reading through dense books like Systematic Theology. But when you are a full grown man, having raised other men to maturation & you can’t explain the story that the Bible is telling beyond, Jesus comes to save us me from sin so we I can go to heaven; something is very wrong.

I was just reading Hebrews where the author is chastising the people for how they should be teachers now, but they can’t because they are still eating baby food. I have seen this so often first hand, where we spend class after class, speaking about Jesus and Christian living but we never really get into it, because we are using some watered down study material.

It is this fact which has really encouraged me to create my own teaching, getting deep into the text each week. I am tired of messing around with shallow studies, and so I have created some deep rich teaching time. I am only one person though. I worry over how this such an pervasive problem, in a nation where access to the materials is so readily available, though they easily get lost among all the other offerings which the publishers produce quickly & easily—it is easy to write fluff. It takes a lot of work to create a work of lasting worth. The same is true of education, I guess until more people take their knowledge & understanding of the divine seriously bad theology will rule the day.