CDM Archive

Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

Church Leadership

Educators vs. Indoctrinators

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By Joel Belz. Having spent the last fifty years as a student, a teacher, an administrator, and a board member in a variety of schools at all levels, I can tell you that I have yet to meet a professional educator who will stand up and say unambiguously: “We’re here not to educate but to indoctrinate your child.”

Why is it that the one term gets such good press and the other one such a bad rap? Why is it that in most people’s minds education is a high and lofty thing while indoctrination is the work of Puritans and Nazis? Why is it, in contemporary parlance, that liberals are portrayed as the educators while conservatives get consigned to the role of indoctrinators.

Why, as a result, does almost everyone want his or her children educated, while almost no one wants them indoctrinated?

In fact, the definitions of the two words highlight no radical distinctions. “Teaching,” “training,” and “instruction” are part of both education and indoctrination, according to my trusty desk dictionary.

Yet the two are different in modern usage, and only a fool would deny it. Part of the difference has to do with twentieth century distaste for doctrine. For most people today, the word doctrine has a harsh, narrow-minded, and intolerant sound. When evangelical ministers, youth leaders, professors, and other leaders can go around saying, as they regularly do, that they don’t want to get hung up on doctrine, it shouldn’t be surprising that the population at large has a negative view of the word. To call someone “doctrinaire” is rarely a compliment.

Modern people, in fact, have been taught that it’s arrogant to assert very much at all to be true. The becoming posture is not to affirm, but to question. Within education, especially in the context of higher education, we are told the assignment is to examine, explore, and evaluate, rather than to assert, proclaim, or indoctrinate.

There’s just enough truth in those assertions to be believable. (But weren’t we doing away with assertions? Is somebody trying to indoctrinate us about the nature of education?)

You have to be a pretty clumsy and amateurish communicator not to have discovered that a frontal approach is rarely the best means of being persuasive. It is far better to walk tentatively about the subject, probing cautiously here, poking hesitantly there, and joining everyone else in a certain air of detachment before saying what you maybe believe. Even the parent of a teenager knows that such a roundabout approach is typically the best way to make a point.

But let’s all stop pretending that the disjunction is between the truly objective folks on the one hand (the educators) and the sneaky, opinionated people on the other hand (the indoctrinators). In fact what we’re really talking about are effective indoctrinators on one hand and blunderbuss indoctrinators on the other. Some are deft at their work (they’re the really good educators), and some are awkward and transparent in their efforts to win the hearts and minds of their students.

Where is the effective educator who has no mission? Where is the master teacher who hasn’t got a list of goals and aspirations for every student? What does it mean to instill those values and those standards in the thinking process of another human being?

No matter how it’s done, isn’t it indoctrination?

Modern state education, pretending to be valueless, is one of the greatest-and most monolithic-purveyors of a value system in all of human history. As such, while pretending to be open-minded, it is also one of the greatest indoctrinators in all of history. That’s what education does.

But Christians have also often tended to get especially gun-shy on these issues. We’ve become scared to admit that we are indoctrinators. Instead, we should admit it right up front. Then we should explain quite openly how we go about the task of indoctrinating our young people and anyone else who will listen.

We do it by saying crisply, clearly, and winsomely what we believe. And then we say: Now let’s take all that apart. Let’s see whether what we’ve affirmed can withstand the light of day and the arguments of our opponents. Let’s explore whether we’ve left out some criticisms and counter-opinions, which, if we had included them, would have prompted us to make our assertions in a different way.

Do you call such a process “education” or “indoctrination”? I suggest it’s the best of both.

A few days ago, I found myself following a station wagon down the street. It was, of course, a Volvo. The back end was plastered with a predictable array of bumper stickers, including a pro-abortion slogan, a “Support Greenpeace” encouragement, and a call for “Free Needles for All.” The sticker that really got my attention, though, in the middle of the mess, was one that said: “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing To Clutter Up.”

I pity the teacher (or the magazine publisher) who expects his or her assertions and proclamations to be believed just because they’ve been asserted or proclaimed. But I pity even more the critics of indoctrination who don’t seem to have a clue what they themselves are doing.

About the Church and Culture

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I was asked recently, “What role does culture play in determining the church’s ministry?” That is a good question, especially when there are so many different ideas and responses regarding it. I would like to build my response around a review and recommendation of Reclaiming the Center, Confronting Evangelical Accommodations in Postmodern Times, by Millard Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth, and Justin Taylor.

I want my response not be read as pro or con, but as a challenge to move carefully and cautiously, following Scripture and developing a biblically sound theology to guide us. We need to dialogue with one another and work through some of these murky waters together. We have much to learn and much to teach as leaders in Christ’s church.

Consider a statement made by George Marsden in his book, Evangelicalism and Modern America. He said, “Sometimes the price that we have to pay for popularity is an adjustment of the message to what the audience wants to hear.” At a recent major youth conference, one of the speakers suggested that one’s goal is not to “preach the Word” but rather to engage the audience. I often use a statement by Cornelius Plantinga to emphasize the need to understand our world: “Suppose we get close enough to secular culture to understand it, to witness to it, to try in some ways to reform it. How do we keep from being seduced by it?”

In a historical perspective, the Church has always struggled to communicate to the people in understandable terms. Especially since the days leading up to and into the Protestant Reformation, communicating with the people has been one of the Church’s goals. By the time the Westminster Divines wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith, the emphasis was definitely on making the Word available in the “vulgar” everyday street language of the people (WCF 1:8). The Divines addressed the need for both the educated and uneducated to be able to read, understand, and apply the Scriptures. They understood well that you couldn’t address people in a cultural vacuum. They also were aware of the impossibility of completely divorcing oneself from this enculturation.

You can observe this in 17th and 18th century theology. At that time the, cultural context was basically determined by Enlightenment philosophy or modernism, as we call it today. That was a paradigm that replaced revelation, supernatural religion, faith, and understanding, with reason, logic and natural religion. Much of the “reformed theology” of that time was done in that context. Hence, many of the theologians were under the influence of Scottish Realism, which attributed man with certain foundational knowledge that he knew with his own mind. Revelation did not play a major role in giving him those foundational “truths.” They simply bought into the language and philosophy of the culture and did their theology in that context. Nancy Pearcey in her book, Total Truth (reviewed in the January/February Equip) sugested that one of the main reasons Western Christianity so completely embraced the philosophy of dualism was because the church failed to develop a consistent language to express their theology but rather borrowed language from the world.

Part of the philosophy of Christian Education and Publications’ training and resources ministry is not only to challenge the church but also to provide tools that will help it understand the Word and the world. David Wells has said, “Not only must evangelicals be trained to understand the context of God’s revelation, but they also should expend some comparable effort to understand the culture they propose to address…. An evangelical theology must involve serious study of one’s culture and its history.”

How can we minister to people in a particular context that reflects an understanding of the culture without changing the message? How much does the way we attempt to communicate truth and the Gospel betray the very message we are attempting to communicate? Marsden raised this question: “Will our attempt to communicate the Gospel truth be done deliberately and controlled or will it be done haphazardly and unconscious of what we are doing?”

As we deal this issue, we walk a tightrope. We can genuinely attempt to communicate God’s truth in a way that takes those universal or absolutes, which mainly, but not totally, transcends one’s culture, or we can carelessly communicate in a manner that relativizes those truths.

How we communicate, even how we worship, must reflect a cultural sensitivity. However, ultimately, our message and worship cannot be audience determined. How we frame “the message” in a particular cultural context is another matter. It is one thing to have an understanding of the audience, which is a must if we are to communicate. It is another to merely accommodate our message or worship to their wishes, desires, or wants. James D. Hunter has written about how evangelicals learned to market their message, insinuating that the message became audience driven. When that happens discipleship is reduced to formulas and checklists. Communicating the Gospel becomes driven by organization and technique. Hunter further indicates that one of the most significant changes that has taken place in evangelicalism is the shift from objective to subjective truth. His research among college and seminary students indicates that we will see even greater accommodation to modernity. The church is cautioned to watch and not to be squeezed into the world’s mold (Rom 12:1,2).

Evangelicalism has always attempted to adjust to its culture. Though there have been different nuisances within that movement, there has been basic agreement on the Bible and Gospel. There has also been much variation in how the Bible and Gospel are communicated but without accommodating to the world’s ways.

One thing is certain; we cannot influence the world by being like the world. We cannot be both in the world and like the world and accomplish any lasting purpose. Within Christianity, especially within the North American church, there has been cultural sensitivity and a genuine desire to reach today’s audience. Reclaiming the Center raises the warning that what may appear to be positive may in fact be accommodating to the point of changing the message. Whether they are called post-conservatives, younger evangelicals, post-fundamentalists, or the emerging church matters not. Labels do not always communicate what they are intended to. Some who would be identified by those labels may not be intending to change or alter the message of the Gospel, but in fact may be doing just that. I wish every pastor, teacher, leader would read this book, especially the chapters by Justin Taylor, D. A. Carson, Douglas Groothuis, J. P. Moreland and Garrett De Weese, and Millard Erickson. Carson’s analysis of Grenz’s writings are most helpful and challenging. Groothuis’s chapter on truth is basic and essential. James Parker’s chapter on the Requiem for Postmodernism, and Moreland and DeWeese’s chapter on foundationalism are highlights in the book. The other supporting chapters add their helpful thoughts.

The title of Erickson’s chapter, “Flying in Theological Fog,” reflects a deep concern in today’s postmodern world. Along with the writers, I wonder if we are flying in a fog and are lacking in the instruments needed to land safely. The new conservatives or younger evangelicals may not be trained to fly in this foggy culture and they may spin out, fly into the ground and die. Erickson and Carson express great concern that some of the newer evangelicals may lack, or at least fail to demonstrate, the historic understanding or perspective to see the implication of their theology. It is one thing to learn about culture and its ideologies. It is another to embrace and adapt them a message that will be altered by them. What we believe must be based on God’s revelation. Therefore, we must have a solid doctrinal foundation that requires carefully choosing our means of expression.

The obvious message is that we cannot accommodate our culture by developing postmodern churches, but rather build biblical sound churches to minister to a postmodern world. Or, to put it in terms of the book, our theology is determined by God’s objective truth, not by the community’s reflection of its beliefs. Objective truth determines the norms and boundaries of the community.

If you have not caught it, Reclaiming the Center, is not only a response to evangelical accommodation, but to the book Renewing the Center, by the late Stanley J. Grenz. Whether you would find yourself in complete agreement with the writers or not, it is important to understand what they are saying about this topic. I think there is much at stake here.

Reclaiming the Center reminded me of the need to be discerning, to understand philosophical thought and development, and to be doctrinally sound. Obviously, many involved in this “new evangelicalism” or “emerging church” have a genuine desire to reach today’s people. Without careful consideration, however, the message intended may not be the message received. It may even conflict with God’s message. Erickson’s closing statement expresses my challenge,

“Our aim is not to tie ourselves too closely to any given cultural situation, but to be prepared to contextualize the message in such a way as to make it more easily understood by our contemporaries. The exact course of evangelical doctrinal formulation is unknown, but we have suggested in this chapter (and this book) some instruments that will help plot the course.”

Making Kingdom Disciples: The Kingdom Framework

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Editor’s note: The following is an abridged interview with Dr. Charles: Dunahoo given by pastor R. J. Umandap over station TBC 88.5 FM in Kingston, Jamaica. Dr. Dunahoo gave the interview during a recent visit to teach his new book, Making Kingdom Disciples: A New Framework.

Listen to the Entire Interview (47 minutes):

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R. J.: The church has been regarded as being “personally engaging but socially irrelevant.” This is the way one philosopher has described Christianity. Unfortunately, it has become all too true in our day. Recognizing this problem, Dr. Charles Dunahoo has written a book entitled Making Kingdom Disciples. He has graciously accepted our invitation to be interviewed today so we are welcoming Dr. Dunahoo to our program.

You say that we have been operating, often unintentionally, with more of a man-centered rather than a God-centered approach to making disciples. Would you explain?

Charles: Thank you for the opportunity to talk about something that is very dear to my heart. Clearly, we are not being effective in making disciples and it’s being demonstrated by the reality that Christians are living like non-Christians. It’s hard to tell them apart in the culture today. I have researched, studied, and interviewed people involved in disciple-making and concluded there are elements not being incorporated in our methodology, especially the concept of the kingdom of God. Many approaches…tend to focus on us and our spiritual development more than on God and His perspective, which of course will affect our spiritual development. The kingdom aspect helps us understand that Christ is the King in all of life. There is no area of life over which Christ has not said “Mine.” I have to be more than a “Sunday Christian.” I have to do more than just read my Bible and pray. I have to learn how to interact with the world as the salt and light because Jesus said His disciples are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Our presence is to be known and felt in the world. Being a kingdom person, “thinking God’s thoughts after Him” as we learn them in the Scriptures and apply them to all of life, I believe is the key missing element. Actually the name of my book, Making Kingdom Disciples: A New Framework is not a new framework; it’s all in the Scriptures. It’s a biblical framework that we have not been using.

R. J.: You talk about living under the reign of Jesus Christ and I guess you need a bit more of a framework for understanding what it means to live under the reign of Christ.

Charles: One of the things often missing in a person’s Christian life is that ability to see the Christian life as a total life system–a total way of life. Christianity not only refers to my relationship to Christ and my church but to my family, my work and my friends, as well as the decisions and choices I make. I have to do that consciously as a kingdom person because Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” A kingdom disciple is someone who is committed to seeking that righteousness in everything they do.

R. J.: To consider that Jesus Christ is king over all of my life and every aspect of my life seems to imply my way of viewing the world itself must change. Would that be a fair statement?

Charles: Absolutely! Because of our relationship to Christ. If I understand what the Scriptures are saying, it’s a perspective that not only affects my personal relationship to the Lord, but also to the world around me. Jesus, in His Great Commission before He ascended to heaven, said that we are to go into the world and make disciples by teaching them. Christianity has a broader implication than my own personal growth, development, and service in the church. The church is the central part of that kingdom that trains and equips us to live for Christ every day of the week. One of the problems we have in western Christianity is that people don’t know how to incorporate their faith in Christ into their every day life. They bought into the idea that “here is a part of my life that belongs to God and I’ll call that the sacred and here is the rest of my life and I call that the secular.” We don’t see how God is involved in our work and in our family and in our friendships and in everything we do. In reality, it’s not about us but about Him and our whole way of life should reflect this.

R. J.: You’re talking about a world and life view and what you’re saying is that many Christians have…a dualistic world and life view. Can you explain this or talk about it?

Charles: Every human being as the image of God, has a worldview. God has put us together wonderfully and fearfully, as the Psalmist says, to live and act in certain ways. [We] may not know what [our] worldview is, but we all see the world through our worldview. It’s the spectacles through which we see life and affects how we interpret life. What has happened in Western Christianity over the past 200 years is that we have bought into a non-Christian notion that we call dualism, which grew out of the ancient Greek philosophers’ view that there is a part of life that is secular and a part that is sacred…There is a part of life that focuses on the supernatural and a part of life that focuses on the natural. What we have to do as Christians is realize this is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches a unified total life. There is no dualistic secular and sacred.

David says, “How precious are your thoughts to me, oh God; how vast the treasure of them.” He did not say, ‘how precious are my thoughts about you’ One of the things I found that Christians often do that lead [us] in different directions is we spend most our time thinking our thoughts about God from our command center…Without starting with God we will not reach the right conclusions. Therefore, our responsibility as kingdom disciples is to think about God the way He tells us in the Bible how to know and think about Him. For example, we lost a five-and-half month old grandson a few years ago. He died after a heart transplant. The only way I could make any sense out of that was having God as my framework in trying to figure out why my grandson went through that. Five and a half months of his life was spent in the hospital waiting on a heart and then getting a heart and then it not working. That was hard for me to deal with until I stepped back and got God’s perspective on this and it helped us as a family to cope with that crisis.

Continued, page 2.

Be a Kingdom Disciple

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Be a Kingdom disciple? Isn’t it hard enough just being an “ordinary” disciple of Jesus?

According to Matthew 28, discipleship involves:

1. Baptizing. We might call it “introducing people to Jesus.” One reason Jesus might have talked about baptism is this: baptism is a rite of the church. Making disciples refers to the work of the church. That means it is part of your work, part of the educational ministry of your church. How would you evaluate your outward focus?

2. Teaching. At creation God gave what is called the “cultural mandate” (Genesis 1:28-30). That has never been abrogated. And the implications are broad. That’s where Kingdom discipleship comes in. As followers of the King we are to take the values of the Kingdom wherever we go. What are those values? They are derived directly and indirectly from Scripture.

At the church where I serve, middle- and high-schoolers are getting another introduction to the Westminster Shorter Catechism. That is combined with a study of Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth for high-schoolers. Part of the challenge is offering a Christian foundation that will prepare them for the secular university and, beyond that, living in an alien society.

Ask yourself: what does it mean for your children and young people to take the values of the Kingdom to their school? To have them reflected in their relationships? The same kind of questions should be raised with adults. Your next question is: how do we effectively communicate Kingdom values in our churches?

3. Teaching – to the end that we will obey. Christianity is much more than a philosophical system. It’s a way of life centered on a relationship to the person of Jesus. Using words from the Old Testament, Jesus summarized the law this way: love God and love your neighbor. Paul simply says, “love your neighbor.” And John reminds us that if we can’t love those we can see, how can we love God who we can’t see?

It doesn’t take much thought to realize that his command is impossible. Individually most of us are miserable failures. Consequently as instructors, we can easily come off as hypocritical. So what makes it worth the effort? Jesus tells us that He has the power. And His promise to fumbling, stumbling people like us is, “I will be with you always.” And His presence is life changing.

With that confidence we can take up our Lord’s challenge to be disciples and to make disciples. We can even work at becoming Kingdom disciples because He has the power and He is with us. Does that give you another level of confidence or what?

What About Men’s Ministry in the PCA?

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charles.jpgWhat about men’s ministry in the PCA? We have been asked that question many times. Before responding, a bit of history would be in order. When the PCA formed in December of 1973, the organizing committee was aware of the background from which our original churches were coming. The committee also understood the challenge to develop a new denomination, originally called “the continuing Presbyterian Church,” that would impact the culture and world, by standing for the truth with a renewed commitment.

In the mainline church (PCUS) from which the PCA developed, there had been structures and programs that had proven effective and two of those were its women’s ministry and its men’s ministry. Desiring to develop programs and ministries that would encourage spiritual growth and ministry to those in and out of the church, the PCA approved a women’s ministry, known as Women in the Church (WIC) and Men of the Covenant (MOC). They positioned them under the oversight and direction of the committee for Christian Education and Publications.

One of the biblical models for making kingdom disciples is found in the book of Titus. After addressing the problems in the communities (and by implication, the homes) resulting from bad teaching, Paul instructed pastors to teach what is in accord with sound doctrine, (Titus 2:1). He then said he was to teach in such a manner that older men could minister to younger men and older women to younger women. A men’s ministry can, as we have seen with our WIC ministry’s focus on “spiritual mothering,” have a powerful impact in the church. Women need to minister to women, and men need to minister to one another. Men who serve as elders and deacons have unique opportunities to minister to one another. The possibilities of dads, granddads, and other older men ministering to younger men make this ministry both challenging and exciting.

From the very outset the PCA’s women’s ministry took root and began to develop a ministry that would give them a sense of connection with women from other churches in the PCA. Testimonials continue to come from women who have appreciated and benefited from that connection. There have been three major denominational WIC conferences and six major regional conferences over the years. The next conference is planned for 2006. In 1999, more than 4,000 PCA women gathered in Atlanta for a conference focusing on mercy ministry. This provided the push for the present mercy ministry conference jointly sponsored by CEP, its WIC program and Mission to North America.

What about the men? In the beginning CEP attempted to start a parallel ministry, originally called Men of the Covenant, at the assembly level to assist presbyteries and local churches with men’s ministries. Such attempts have yet to take shape though numbers of efforts have been attempted over the years. We continue to be asked, especially by some of the participants in the WIC ministry, when are you going to have similar ministry for the PCA men? We have replied that we have made numerous attempts but without success. Many local churches have some very outstanding men’s ministries in the PCA. Our desire, more than having a top down structure, is to encourage men to see the need and come forward as husbands, fathers, and Christian men in general with the commitment to seek to live as kingdom disciples.

We have also been asked why the PCA encourages special ministries such as women, youth, children, and men through CEP. Our response has uniformly been that we do encourage local churches, through their formal and informal leadership, to develop a holistic plan of ministry for their churches. This allows local sessions that are responsible for the local church’s ministry, to oversee and coordinate the entire ministry, and to evaluate its progress.

In addition to the approach above, we have also seen the value of including specialized ministries to women, men, youth, and children. None of these are to replace the whole, however. As far as children and youth, the church must not take over parental responsibility, though promises are made at baptism to assist parents in training their children.

Having said that, the articles by Pat Morley (PCA) and TE Peter Alwinson, a PCA teaching elder, launch a new effort on the part of CEP. We will be working more closely with Morley, the author and originator of the Man in the Mirror ministry. Together we will offer churches help in developing a men’s ministry. Encouraging, mobilizing and training men for ministry are vital initiatives. As a former pastor, the churches I served were able to do some significant ministries through both the women and men’s ministries. I have seen first hand the value of such ministry.

In case you’re asked, CEP is still very much committed to encouraging a men’s ministry that is strategically focused in the local church. We would like to encourage churches with this ministry and even provide training and resources to assist. We are asked, “Will CEP ever sponsor a denominational men’s conference similar to its WIC conferences?” At this point only the Lord knows that, but would not it be a wonderful thing to see PCA men from across the church come together for such an event?

The Six Habits of Spiritually Happy Men

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By Patrick Morley


I’ve been meeting with men to talk about where they are on their spiritual pilgrimage for over three decades. Many of those men exude a contagious joy and contentment. Their lives are peaceable, orderly, and recommend Christ. They’re downright happy!

Most of these happy men exercise six spiritual habits that keep them “abiding in Christ.” The dictionary says a habit is, “an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.”

These six habits are no litmus test that you can use to judge a man’s walk with Christ. That would be extremely dangerous. These habits create no special merit with Christ. They do nothing to improve a man’s record with Jesus. They are, however, indicators or “clues” of a deeper commitment to live by faith and make a difference in the world.

The six habits of spiritually happy men are:

  1. They read the Bible regularly. They love God’s word, and want to regularly read and meditate on the Bible.
  2. They pray with their wives. This symbolizes a depth of relationship with God and his wife.
  3. They tithe. I’ve never known a man who tithed who was not happy.
  4. They are in a small group. They are personally vulnerable and seek to be held accountable by other men. This group might be with a few men, or only one other man. It might meet for Bible study, discussion, fellowship, prayer, or a combination.
  5. They are active in a church. Active involvement is the overflow of a deeper work that Christ is doing in a man’s heart.
  6. They are serving the Lord. They have a passion that their lives will make a difference in the world. They pursue a life of significance. They view everything as serving the Lord.

I certainly don’t mean to imply that these are the only six habits that reveal the depth of a man’s walk with Christ. Nevertheless, those of us who are leaders would do well to practice and encourage our men to practice these six habits. The change of heart that underlies the visible habits can change the course of a man’s life and family lineage for generations to come.

Together in the Battle for Men’s Souls!

Patrick Morley is the founder, chairman and CEO of Man in the Mirror, a ministry dedicated to equipping leaders in the local church to disciple men. He has a led the Man in the Mirror Bible Study outside of Orlando since 1986. You can get more info and view these Bible studies at www.maninthemirror.org/biblestudy/series.htm