First Church Sedalia

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.

A couple of thoughts. I had mentioned in the spiritual gifts class (and we’d all had a good laugh over Ben’s question, “What does that say about the Methodist church”) that statistics show the more education one has, the less religious they tend to be. I think its important to balance that out with the other proverbial “edge” of the sword.

I think while its true that our current paradigms of education can be counterproductive in nurturing faith, it’s also true that the most powerful and influential men of God in history have been highly educated. Case in point, Moses and the apostle Paul. The two men who had more to do the the formation of the bible as we know it and the shape of the Jewish and Christian religion were both highly educated. I felt I needed to say that since I draw heavily upon two highly educated men in this lecture, N.T. Wright and C.S. Lewis (do you think using your initials for your name is a sign of intelligence?).

But I would also say that education is not what qualifies us to be used by God or to hold an office in his service. We could use just as many examples of people with little to no education who did profoundly significant and far reaching works for the church and for humanity.