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Back to newsThe Barmen Declaration was an appeal to German Churches and Christians to stand firm against collusion with the state’s destructive behaviours and ideologies. It was an invitation to reflect critically on whether the doctrines of the so-called ‘German Christians’ stacked up against the commonly agreed evangelical truths.
Encouraging young people to resist the prevailing secular culture around them is part and parcel of Christian Youth Ministry. But, today, we also find ourselves in the position of needing to support young people in the Church to stand with us, against a movement that is masquerading as being rooted in the Christian faith. To quote Bonhoeffer (Letters and Papers from Prison, 1951), we aren’t called to just bind the wounds of those that this movement harms but to ‘drive a spoke into the wheel itself’.
For Educator and Philosopher Paulo Freire (Pedagogy for the Oppressed, 1968), the key to liberation for the Brazilian underclass was an ability that he termed ‘critical consciousness’ or ‘conscientização’. It involved deep reflection, self-belief in the capacity for change, and subsequent action. He criticised what he called the ‘banking method’ of education where learners are treated as empty vessels into which knowledge is deposited by the educator. If we are honest, this is often how our Churches and Youth Ministries operate. Aren’t our sermons, discipleship courses, and Bible Studies designed for the preacher or leader to ‘deposit’ truths in our hearts, leaving us with a key message intended to shape our behaviours? For Freire, this does not liberate, as is the intention of the gospel (Luke 4:18-19), but instead leaves young people vulnerable to manipulation; they haven’t had opportunity to critically reflect on or challenge what they have learned. It is our responsibility to trust in young people and their ability to reason, to re-form our reflections in the reflection of young people, and to co-investigate with them in dialogue, not simply to teach them what we think they need to know.
‘The conviction of the oppressed that they must fight for their liberation is not a gift bestowed by the revolutionary leadership, but the result of their own conscientização’ (Ch.1 Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968).
In other words, young people are not going to resist the far-right co-option of Christianity because we teach them to, they will resist it when they:
- uncover the reality of the gospel
- believe they can challenge it
- can find ways to exercise their resistance.
What might this look like in practice? More reflections will be on their way over the coming weeks!
