Astley Forming Disciples - College of Humanities · FORMING DISCIPLES 2 Abstract While the...

Running head: FORMING DISCIPLES 1

\\isad.isadroot.ex.ac.uk\UOE\User\Pathfinder\PhD\Lukes fund\workshop\Astley Forming Disciples.doc 14/03/2016

Forming disciples: Some educational and biblical reflections

Jeff Astley

Glyndŵr University, UK

Note on contributor:

The Revd Professor Jeff Astley is currently Alister Hardy Professor of Religious and

Spiritual Experience at Glyndŵr University and an honorary professor at Durham and York

St John Universities. He was Director of the North of England Institute for Christian

Education (http://community.dur.ac.uk/neice/) 1981-2013.

Correspondence to:

8 Vicarage Court, Heighington Village, Newton Aycliffe, DL5 6SD

Tel: 01325 312414 Email: [email protected]

FORMING DISCIPLES 2

Abstract

While the churches’ use of the language of formation and discipleship is widespread, these

terms are not often analysed in much detail. This paper draws on educational reflections on

the idea of formation and biblical accounts of the nature of discipleship to offer some further

insights. In particular, it argues for a critical dimension within adult Christian education and a

recognition of the variety and breadth of the notion of discipleship. It concludes by proposing

the category of ‘learning to see’ as one that is fundamental to both the formative and the

critical education of Christian disciples.

Keywords: disciples, discipleship, education, faith, formation, learning, vision

FORMING DISCIPLES 3

Introduction

Churches often dignify processes and programmes of adult Christian education with

such phrases as ‘discipleship courses’, ‘education/learning for discipleship’, ‘discipleship

education’, ‘education for lay discipleship’, ‘extending discipleship’, ‘developing

discipleship’; and ‘Christian formation’, ‘formation in the Christian faith’, ‘liturgical

formation’, ‘theological formation’, ‘human formation’, ‘spiritual formation’, ‘pastoral

formation’, ‘formation in Christian service’, ‘faith formation’ and ‘clergy/ministerial

formation’. In the widest sense, the whole ‘learning church’ is now often said to comprise

‘learning disciples’ who need to be formed in Christian discipleship.

These terms are often used quite broadly, and sometimes merely as convenient,

conventional or even fashionable labels. This seems to me to be too often the case in the

Church of England’s use of the term ‘formation’ (reviewed in Bunting, 2009), which is

sometimes used in the composite phrase ‘learning and formation’ in a manner that suggests

some sort of distinction (Archbishops’ Council, 2015, pp. 1, 10). The same church sometimes

uses ‘education for discipleship’ as a general title to denote opportunities for learning,

described in a key report as something to be ‘offered on a Church-wide basis for a range of

students, which might include lay people seeking to deepen their Christian discipleship,

trainee Readers and other lay ministers and potential candidates for ordination’. Recognising

the danger of conflating these audiences, the report takes pains to affirm that accredited

programmes of education for discipleship should both ‘be of interest to lay people who wish

to serve God in their ordinary lives’, and ‘at the same time ... contribute to the initial training

of lay ministers and prospective ordinands’. The learning generated by such programmes

should therefore not be ‘confined to one type of theological or ministerial learning’ and

‘should be of real, continuing value, even if the learner does not proceed to any form of

accredited ministry’ (Archbishops’ Council, 2003, Proposals 3, 5; 5.22, 5.23).

FORMING DISCIPLES 4

A later report underscores this point, construing education for discipleship as a task

‘undertaken to help people be better disciples – not just better potential ministers’. This

publication begins to develop a fuller account of discipleship and uses the term ‘to describe

the whole life-response of Christians to Jesus Christ’ focused on ‘the service of God and his

mission to the world’, arguing that ‘one primary goal is that disciples should be more Christ-

like human beings’ and therefore more effective signs of the kingdom. It also rejects the

connotation that education for discipleship is about some ‘discipling’ form of discipline that

marks the conforming of beliefs and behaviour ‘on the basis of authority’. Rather, ‘we want

to ensure that learning connects with life experience and ministry and mission on the ground’.

Little more is said about the understanding of discipleship, however, apart from the claims

that ‘Christian discipleship has both an individual and a corporate dimension, and is a

collaborative as well as an individual response to Christ’s call’; and that ‘all God’s people are

called to discipleship; all are valuable; all are gifted’ (Archbishop’s Council, 2006, ‘EFD and

discipleship’, ‘Misunderstandings of discipleship’, ‘Underlying principles’). The 2015 report,

Developing discipleship, adds to the analysis some brief comments on the cost, joy and

empowering perspective of discipleship, its distinction from the ‘life of the world around us’,

and its relation to baptism (Archbishop’s Council, 2015, pp. 1-3; cf. Worthen, 2014, pp. 5-6).

There remains more to be said about these topics. But we should first ask: Are these

terms well chosen? Researching a representative sample of adult education work in one

Anglican diocese, the author commented: ‘However worthy “Education for Discipleship”

may sound to some, this study has shown that it is a most unhelpful description of both the

process and content of adult Christian learning in the diocese.’ She argues further that

‘“learning” is a more acceptable term than “education”’ (Savage, 2007, p. 12). It is often

claimed that many lay people ‘evidently do not see themselves as disciples’ because they

associate the term with the first disciples, whom they regard as ‘special and their calling

FORMING DISCIPLES 5

different in kind from the faith to which contemporary Christians are called’ (Walton, 2013,

p. 179). I expect that many would harbour similar reservations about being designated as

‘missionary disciples’ (Francis, 2013, paras. 24, 40, 120, 173; Archbishops’’ Council, 2015,

p. 4).

Patently, the churches’ discourse of formation and discipleship includes rich concepts

whose meaning should be fully explored. I shall attempt to contribute to that exercise in this

paper, drawing on both educational and biblical reflections.

Formation

I hold that a distinction between formative and critical education is useful within

Christian education. On my view, the metaphor of forming or shaping is best understood in

terms of a learning process (normally intentionally facilitated) in which a person’s beliefs,

values, attitudes, dispositions, and so on are moulded, ‘nurtured’ and transformed into beliefs,

values, attitudes, dispositions, etc., that are regarded as more Christian in their nature. By

contrast, critical education involves learning the skills, attitudes and dispositions required for

examining and evaluating something: ‘critical Christian education’ therefore labels learning

processes that encourage, equip and assist Christians to appraise Christian beliefs, values,

attitudes, etc., by the application of various cognitive, moral, biblical and theological criteria

(Astley, 1994, ch. 5; cf. Astley & Francis, 1994, pp. 4-5, 65-72, 169-214, 251-291, 297-298,

345-359; Astley, Francis, & Crowder, 1996, 227-314, 322-324, 342-358, 369-371; Hull,

1985, 70-85; McKenzie, 1982, pp. 36-37, 63-67; 1991, 29-32). Something is lost, I believe, if

the language of formation, with its powerful metaphorical connotations, is not balanced by

this second, critical dimension.

I use the word ‘education’ here in its widest sense, resisting any attempt to restrict the

term either to processes that only lead to cognitive outcomes, or only to those that include

some critical appraisals of a tradition (Astley, 1994, chs 1 and 3; 2011, pp. 22-24). I am

FORMING DISCIPLES 6

therefore willing to speak of a wide range of learning outcomes and processes as species of

‘formative education’. Others, however, have argued that Christian education is not truly

education if active critical Christian reflection and theological thinking are neglected learning

outcomes.

(The tendency in church documents to restrict the concept of learning to cognitive

learning, or even to ‘academic learning’, is regrettable: everyone learns all the time, and

much of this learning involves learning attitudes and values, dispositions and skills; learning

is not just limited to thinking and beliefs or to ‘formal Christian education’ courses – cf.

Archbishops’ Council, 2015, p. 3. The fact that the terms education, learning, formation and

nurture, and others such as catechesis and indoctrination, are rarely defined when they are

employed in general ecclesiastical debate leads many commentators astray; for a detailed

discussion see Astley, 1994, chs 1, 3, 4, 5;. Astley & Day, 1992, ch. 1; Astley & Francis,

1994, part one; cf. Roebben & Warren, 2001, pp. 125-173.)

Like most Christian educationalists in mainstream churches, I agree that the formative

processes of passing on and inducting people into the Christian faith, story, vision and

identity needs to be complemented to some degree by helping these learners assess and

question from their own perspectives what they are receiving and, therefore, what they are

learning to believe, feel and be. This is particularly the case for adult learners. It is the only

way that most adults can come, with any sense of integrity, to embrace and own a religious

faith for themselves – that is, to ‘personally appropriate’ it (Astley, 2000, pp. 34-41). (Of

course, critical Christian education is itself formative in the sense that it involves formation in

the learner of those interpretative and evaluative cognitive skills and dispositions that are

required for this critical stance and consciousness.)

As the language above clearly indicates, Christian education, especially in its

formative mode, educates the whole person and therefore includes cognitive (thinking,

FORMING DISCIPLES 7

believing), affective (feeling, having attitudes and dispositions) and behavioural (action)

learning outcomes. This view represents an important holistic perspective on both

Christianity and Christian education (Astley, 1994, ch. 6 and pp. 232-235). It is well

expressed by John Sullivan as ‘a long-term, deliberate, and multi-faceted process that seeks

to produce a character of substance, one who is thoroughly inducted into the way of life of a

particular community and tradition ... [that is, its] way of thinking, behaving, worshipping,

and belonging’. He argues that the processes of both Christian discipleship and Christian

education involve our learning ‘to look at and to live in Christ, within the body of the church,

as participants within the stream of living tradition. This is the goal of formation’ (Sullivan,

2011, pp. 4-5, 15, cf. 311). I shall pick up this language of ‘looking’ in the final section of

this paper.

Any idea of formation necessarily presupposes that the educator has some sort of

ideal or goal in mind as an educational outcome. In this case, the aim is to produce a

Christian mind, viewpoint or belief system; a Christian character and spirituality; and the

religious and moral activities that comprise ‘practising Christianity’, and which flow from

and express Christian beliefs and Christian character. Some or all of these elements are what

we take to be constitutive of becoming and being a Christian. But this should not be taken to

imply that the enormous variety of Christian learners can be forced into a one-size-fits-all

mould; that formation is a deterministic process in which the goals and objectives are clearly

and precisely known at the outset; that the individual learner must be entirely passive,

without any original contribution to make on her own account (for her appropriation of

Christian Faith expresses her autonomous activity); or that there is nothing more to becoming

a Christian than any account of human teaching and learning can exhaust (Astley, 2000, pp.

6-16; 2002, pp. 25-44; 2007b).

Discipleship

FORMING DISCIPLES 8

Rather surprisingly, recent Anglican documents have only briefly attended to the

biblical concept of discipleship, focusing more on ‘periods of significant reflection’ on the

importance of discipleship through the history of the church and today (Worthen, 2014;

Archbishops’ Council, 2015). But the Bible’s understanding of discipleship is a rich resource

that merits further exploration.

In the New Testament, the word mathētēs, ‘disciple’, occurs 264 times – but only in

the Gospels and Acts. Scholars claim that in classical and secular Greek its basic meaning is

the one ‘who directs his mind to something’. The word was used of a learner and is cognate

with manthanō, ‘I learn’ (just as the Latin noun discipulus derives from the verb ‘to learn’,

discere). Such pupils both listened to and bound themselves to a didaskalos, a ‘teacher’. This

relationship was stronger than is usual in our own day, and was regarded as something that

could not be dissolved (Rengstorf, 1967, pp. 416-418). A disciple’s personal commitment to

a teacher could therefore continue beyond the teacher’s death, as a shared advocacy of his

cause and intentions, especially through the preservation and transmission of his teaching.

The notion of disciples belongs more to rabbinic practice than it does to the Old

Testament, where God is the only master and the whole people – not particular individuals –

are paradigmatically the objects of God’s revelation and encounter God’s authority (Müller,

1975, pp. 485-486). Yet the rabbinic teacher was no individualist, but stood within the Jewish

community and was therefore subject like everyone else to God’s absolute claims in the

Torah (Rengstorf, 1967, pp. 431-440).

In the New Testament, the disciple is a follower: always in a metaphorical sense, but

often literally, too (Mark 1: 16-20). Following is a formational stance and activity in which a

person’s beliefs, values, attitudes, and dispositions to act and experience are learned on the

road, along the way. In Luke’s Gospel, this ‘following of Jesus’ is done in space and time and

geography, as the disciples receive Jesus’ teaching on their shared journey to Jerusalem (9:

FORMING DISCIPLES 9

51 – 19: 28). In Acts, this ‘Way’ has become wholly metaphorical; but is still thought of as a

road to be trod, following in the way of the Lord.

During his earthly ministry, it was Jesus’ call that was decisive rather than the

disciple’s choice, although that call still required a response of obedience, which must

include what contemporary students of fundamental theology refer to as ‘appropriation’ or

‘reception’. However, even when the disciples take the initiative, as in John 1: 35-51, it is

Jesus who accepts and affirms the newcomer. Mathētēs, therefore, ‘always implies the

existence of a personal attachment which shapes the whole life of the one [so] described ...

and which in its particularity leaves no doubt as to who is deploying the formative power’, a

power that extends into their ‘inner life’. It is the main business of the disciple of Jesus ‘to be

stamped and fashioned by Him’ (Rengstorf, 1967, p. 441-442, 449).

As the Gospel text puts it, ‘a disciple is not above [huper] the teacher, nor the slave

above the master. It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the

master’ (Matthew 10: 24-25; cf. Luke 6: 40; John 13: 16, 15: 20). In what sense, ‘like’ him?

One commentator (France, 2007, pp. 401-402) tentatively suggests that this text is a

‘tantalizing pointer’, apparently from an early tradition (Q?), ‘toward the Pauline theology

which may already have been familiar to Matthew and his readers’ of ‘a bold theology of

Christian sanctification’. That theology is expressed in the epistles as a matter of ‘being

conformed to the image’ of Christ and ‘putting him on’ (Romans 8: 29, 13: 14; cf. Ephesians

4: 20-24; Colossians 3: 1-11). It is a category that bears serious spiritual and moral

implications that are too easily passed over in framing structures for education for

discipleship in our own day (see Spohn, 1999, p. 146 and passim).

Mathētēs not only labelled those whose learning took place in the context of

philosophical and other schools; it was also applied to one who was apprenticed to a master.

As in secular apprenticeship, true discipleship learning was ‘no mere intellectual process’ of

FORMING DISCIPLES 10

acquiring teaching (Müller, 1975, p. 486), but involved a binding to and acceptance of Christ,

the rejection of an old existence, and obedient commitment to his word in a new life that

showed itself in a person’s conduct. Discipleship thus involves a decisive commitment to this

person; it is never just a commitment to a teaching that is separable from him. This is one

feature that is said to distinguish Jesus’ disciples from those of the rabbis, for in the former

case ‘faith is the controlling factor in the relation of the disciples of Jesus to their Master’.

Where the rabbi and the Greek philosopher may represent a specific cause, ‘Jesus offers

Himself’. Hence, the disciples were not ‘the faithful mediators of insights’, but ‘faithful

witnesses’ to the truth that Jesus was in himself and that resided in him (Rengstorf, 1967, pp.

447, 455). In John’s Gospel, the disciples are explicitly said to ‘abide’ in this Jesus – in this

Truth – through a relationship of mutual indwelling (John 6: 56-57; 12: 26).

This is how Christ was learned during Jesus’ life and after it, in a personal learning

and understanding that expressed itself overtly (cf. John 13: 34-35; Ephesians 4: 2;

Philippians 2: 5-11). Their discipleship was ‘defined by his messiahship, that is, in terms of

obedience and service’ (Johnson, 2010, p. 153). Clearly, the discipleship to which Jesus

called ‘was practical and not merely theoretical’ (Dunn, 1992, p. 124); and hence the

disciples’ work ‘was not study but practice’.

Jesus was their Master not so much as a teacher of right doctrine, but rather as the

master-craftsman whom they were to follow and imitate. Discipleship was not

matriculation in a Rabbinical College but apprenticeship to the work of the Kingdom

... [They were] ‘apprentices’ rather than ‘students’. (Manson, 1963, pp. 239-240)

This is another dimension of education for discipleship that is easily lost, particularly in

study-based courses that are assessed by the impersonal methods of evaluation inevitable in

secular universities. It is a dimension worth exploring further.


We have seen that the call to discipleship was a call to learning and following, but

also a call to service. For some of the disciples, at least, it truly became a call to becoming

douloi, slaves: a call to hardship, suffering and loss. This is the emphasis that is traditionally

expressed as the ‘cost of discipleship’. But it is not limited to the ‘special’ disciples, nor to

those whose discipleship was fulfilled in martyrdom. The call is tersely expressed in Mark 8:

34-37 – words that are spoken to ‘the crowd with the disciples’; and in Luke 14: 25-27 – a

logion that is declared to ‘large crowds’. According to Bonhoeffer, although ‘the cross is laid

on every Christian’, Christ’s call to ‘come and die’ can be – and, obviously, most often is – a

call to a spiritual rather than a carnal crucifixion. Primarily, it is a call to the death of the old

self, a death to one’s own will (Bonhoeffer, 1959, p. 79), in a radical conversion of values

that is ‘truly a matter of life and death’ (Dunn, 1992, pp. 24-25). In New Testament times,

this involved the call ‘to live in the light of the coming Kingdom, just as Jesus himself did ...

a living under God’s rule’ (Dunn, 1992, pp. 51-52). This is still the fundamental requirement

for Christian discipleship.

Jesus’ call to radical discipleship, and perhaps to ‘perfection’ (cf. Mark 10: 17-

31//Matthew 19: 16-230//Luke 18: 18-31; Matthew 5: 43-48; Luke 6: 27-28, 32-36), may

have been intended for all. But in practice there always were different types and degrees of

response; as there were a variety of ways in which people Not all disciples embraced the

itinerant life of Jesus, and certainly not in a way that involved abandoning home, family and

possessions. According to Brendan Byrne:

Matthew sees Jesus’ invitation [to renounce wealth] as applying to all ... [partly] in

the sense that reliance on wealth for security gets in the way of the radical trust in

God that is incumbent upon all who enter the kingdom ... But ... there will always be

some who ... take on a form of discipleship more closely patterned upon that of Jesus


and his immediate disciples, with its radical poverty and dependence on hospitality

for support. (Byrne, 2004, p. 65)

Does Jesus’ teaching apply to all who follow him? Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount

is addressed to the disciples: ‘an undefined group, presumably larger in number than the

twelve’ (Evans, 2012, p. 99), but which ‘may denote all those who wished to hear the

teacher’s instruction’ (Hill, 1972, p. 109). In any case, this teaching is ‘overheard’ by the

crowds (Matthew 7: 28), whom R. T. France calls ‘a secondary audience in the background’

(France, 2007, p. 297). However, in Matthew’s eyes at any rate, the teaching of the Sermon

largely affects the world through the practice, values and – we may note – ‘distinctive vision’

that is taught to and expressed by the community of disciples (Byrne, 2004, p. 52).

By contrast, Luke’s much shorter ‘Sermon on the Plain’ is explicitly delivered not

only to the Twelve but also to a wider group – ’a great crowd of his disciples’ and a ‘great

multitude of people’ (Luke 6: 17). This sounds like a much less narrow audience. However,

this framework has also been interpreted as reflecting ‘something like the charge given at an

ordination’, where ‘candidates receive formal instruction regarding who they must be and

how they must behave before the wider group they will serve’ (Byrne, 2000, p. 64). But

doesn’t that interpretation rather clericalise discipleship? This was surely not Luke’s

intention.

However we interpret these texts, the disciples are nowhere presented as having been

chosen so that they may be hermetically sealed off from the world; nor are they taught a

secret knowledge for their own personal spiritual flourishing and salvation. Rather, they are

given all this for the sake of the world, and are mandated to teach the world in their turn, and

to serve it as witnesses to the Christ who took on the role of the servant (Mark 10: 42-45;

Luke 22: 25-27; John 13: 2-20). The very logic of the creation of the New Testament implies

that this teaching and this discipleship was, in some sense at least, for all who would respond.


Yet – or therefore? – there were certainly different sorts of disciples. The symbolic

Twelve formed an inner circle, ‘a group who were regarded, by Jesus and others, as

particularly “his disciples”’ (Dunn, 1992, p. 96). But they were not an elite, either in the

demands made of them or in any deserved status; and they possessed no ‘hierarchical role’

within the wider group of disciples or any ‘intermediary function’ as gatekeepers to Jesus vis-

à-vis any who wished to come directly to him (Dunn, 1992, p. 106). In fact, they are regularly

rebuked for attempting to control others (Mark 10: 13-14). They are also berated for their

lack of spiritual understanding, particularly in Mark’s Gospel; on many occasions they

simply fail to ‘get’ Jesus (Mark 8: 14-21, 10: 35-37; Acts 1: 6). So there is nothing

particularly ‘special’, in the sense of particularly worthy or pious, or theologically or

spiritually acute, about these special disciples. Nevertheless, they are ‘representatives of

Israel as it should be and will be’ (Dunn, 1992, p. 97).

The Twelve were a subset of a more extended circle of disciples, who were

themselves part of ‘a still wider group of adherents’ (Müller, 1975, p. 489); indeed, ‘the very

choosing of “twelve” contains a claim on all Israel’ (Conzelmann, 1969, p. 33). (Zooming in

rather than out, there are suggestions of an ‘inner circle’ within the Twelve, comprising Peter,

James and John; but only John’s Gospel singles out the unknown – and possibly ideal –

‘beloved disciple’. We should observe, however, that even the ‘Petrine’ power to bind and

loose is later given to ‘the disciples’ more generally, in Matthew 16: 18-19, 18: 18-20.)

Although others, particularly women, seem to have journeyed with Jesus, many in these other

groups were not literally followers on Jesus’ way at all, but remained where they were, in

their own towns, homes and secular vocations (Mark 14: 13-15; Luke 10: 38-42; John 11).

It is important that the contemporary church recognise that nowhere is ‘an exclusive

line drawn’ between those who are left within their own circle, and those who follow Jesus

on the road (Bornkamm, 1960, pp. 147-148). ‘There seems to have been no real distinction in


Jesus’ ministry between those who literally followed him and a much wider circle of

discipleship which he also recognized’, including many ‘outside the circle of those who had

formally declared for him’ – including many who do not even ‘know or own the name of

Jesus’ (Dunn, 1992, pp. 108, 110, 113; see Matthew 18: 3-4, 25: 40, 45; Mark 3: 35; Luke 6:

20, 14: 13 and 21, 18: 14). It is apparent that not all disciples were engaged in an overt

preaching, evangelism or healing ministry. In the earliest community of disciples, therefore,

‘not all responsibilities of discipleship devolve on all disciples, or on all disciples alike’ –

there were apparently some disciples who only prayed for and practically supported those

who are active ‘on behalf of the whole community and of its lord’ (Dunn, 1992, pp. 114-115,

cf. 119). It appears, then, at least in Jesus’day, that not all were ‘missionary disciples’; some

may even have been regarded, or regarded themselves, as ‘part-time’, ‘disciples for a season’

(despite Archbishops’ Council, 2015, p. 2).

The Gospel writers differ in their use of the language of disciples. Mark and Matthew

routinely use it to denote a close fellowship (e.g. Matthew 5: 1). However, they also mention

others who may be said to ‘function as disciples’ (Koperski, 2010, p. 161): including Peter’s

mother-in-law, Joseph of Arimathea and the women who ‘used to follow him and provided

for him’ in Galilee and ‘many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem’ (Mark

15: 41; cf. Matthew 8: 18-22; Mark 3: 31-45). Luke and John refer more explicitly to this

second, wider group (Luke 6: 17, 19: 37; John 4: 1. 8: 31); with Luke being careful not to use

the word mathētēs in the period between Gethsemane (where their relationship with Jesus is

broken) and Acts 6 – where the term is now applied to all Christians. The fact that this word

is not found outside these texts suggests that it was not a preferred or normal self-designation

of the early church. This is possibly because of its use in the developing and increasingly

antagonistic Judaism of the times, or it perhaps derives from an uneasiness with the

contemporary Greek understanding of the term to denote a philosophical movement rather


than a movement of the Spirit. However, the practice of baptism ‘in the name of Jesus’ (Acts

2: 38 etc.), which evidently implied becoming Jesus’ follower (1 Corinthians 1: 12-15),

signifies a continuing appropriation of the idea of discipleship beyond Easter. Thus, while the

word itself ceased to be used, the concept and practice that it stood for continued to be

salient.

I believe that we should acknowledge more explicitly the lack of closed-off barriers in

Jesus’ understanding of what was involved in someone becoming and remaining his disciple.

It is, of course, difficult to trace either the physical or the conceptual geometry and geography

of Jesus’ disciples. There remains a ‘grey area . . . between the uncommitted “crowd” ... and

the fully committed Twelve’ (France, 2007, pp. 324-325; cf. Perkins, 1990, pp. 2, 32-34), and

doubtless at other fuzzy borderlines as well. Yet Jesus’ call was always a call to acknowledge

the transcending grace of a kingdom that permitted no barriers or social limits, and therefore

neither the privileges of rank, hierarchy or any other sort of status, nor the smug satisfaction

of belonging to an in-group around which boundaries may be drawn that ‘determine who is in

and which shut others out’ (Dunn, 1992, p. 72). The one ‘who does not follow with us’ but

yet also performs the works of the kingdom – in this case, a healing exorcism – must not be

challenged or hindered, ‘for whoever is not against you is for you’ (Mark 9: 38-40//Luke 9:

49-50). Presumably, this individual is ‘a disciple from that wider group that did not travel

with them on the road but was influenced and moved by Jesus ... [whose] answer looks for a

greater openness and is a rebuke of all exclusiveness’ (Franklin, 2001, p. 940). Jesus’ call is

to a boundless love that God and Jesus himself exemplified and which, according to the

Fourth Gospel, was a ‘new commandment’ (John 13: 34). This extended not just to social

equals but also to the poor and helpless, and even to enemies (Matthew 5: 44; Luke 14: 12-

14, 10: 30-37). Grace abounding and infinite love are not themes that may be readily

constrained, nor easily ignored, whatever the circumstances.


Such is ‘the life of discipleship’ (Jeremias, 1971, pp. 203-230; cf. Dunn, 1992, p. 127

and ch. 4) in Jesus’ own day and intention. And, despite the reluctance of contemporary

Christians to claim this title – or, even more, the later New Testament title of ‘saint’ (which

appears over 60 times in the epistles and Acts) – ‘the discipleship to which Jesus called was a

discipleship for sinners’ (Dunn, 1992, p. 91). All Christians are worthy to be called disciples,

provided that they may be said to follow and to learn from Jesus. Some of the first disciples

were different, were treated differently and were called to different ways of discipleship than

others; but it is misleading to think of them as ‘special’ in any way that prevents us from

seeing them as our brother- and sister-disciples. There were, and are, many types and degrees

of Christian discipleship.

Learning to see

What do they have in common? Perhaps it is something that is required of all who

may be said to have learned discipleship? There is one factor, in particular, that I regard as

essential. Many of the other elements of discipleship are dependent on it. We may recall that

the word ‘disciple’ was used of an apprentice:

Apprenticeship takes time. During this time, apprentices learn more than skills. They

also learn the trade’s attendant traditions – including its language, its duties and

responsibilities, and its appropriate character virtues and demeanour. You learn not

only to act like your mentor-master acts, with the saw and plane. You also learn – to

an extent – to be as he is. In modelling yourself on your teacher, you come to see the

wood, the joints and the whole craft-practice as he sees them. You are formed with

and in his vision. ‘Following in the master’s way’ is a very wide-ranging form of

learning. (Astley, 2007a, pp. 8-9)

There is, therefore, an important ‘ophthalmic’ dimension to discipleship learning, which

seems to demand some articulation in visual metaphors. It is appropriately couched in terms


of ‘a correction of vision ... the formation, purification and redirection of our vision’; and as

involving a ‘sustaining vision’ that sees things, people, history and our own lives not

superficially but ‘in depth’ – viewing these familiar, everyday, ordinary things differently, as

if through a lens (Astley, 2007a, pp. 11, 15-26, 69; cf. 112-117). Faith has sometimes been

interpreted as visio, understood as ‘a way of seeing’, of looking on things, or of experiencing

them ‘as’ something or another; and much of the ‘ordinary theology’ of Christians articulates

this learned ‘onlook theology’ of seeing in particular ways (Borg, 2003, pp. 34-36; Astley,

2002, pp.82-86; cf. Evans, 1963, pp. 125-129; Hick, 1973).

This is an authentically biblical understanding. ‘Do you still not perceive?’, Jesus asks

his disciples. ‘Do you have eyes, and fail to see?’ (Mark 8: 17, 18). This ‘shift of perception

is the challenge of the gospel [Jesus] preached and lived, and for which he died’ (Wright,

2010, p. 100).

The journey of discipleship began with Jesus’ call to see that something radically new

was breaking into history ... . The Christian way of life begins in how we perceive

what is going on. The Gospels give us a new set of metaphors and paradigms, new

lenses, to look at the world. Our experience looks different when seen through the

lens of the kingdom of God. (Spohn, 1999, p. 71)

Mark McIntosh has argued that a perspectival analysis is also fundamental to doing

theology. ‘We will never really see what theology is about until and unless we recognize that

true theologians see everything from this new perspective, from this sharing in the dying and

rising of Jesus’. And the Christian revelation comprises ‘a network of beliefs ... by means of

which Christians seek to think about everything from God’s point of view’ (McIntosh, 2008,

pp. 18, 36).

Stanley Hauerwas and Brian Goldstone relate this sort of perception to formation in

their essay, ‘Disciplined seeing’, suggesting there that ‘to “see something as something” is, in


large measure, already to have been made by it’, and that this is often a consequence of

‘pedagogies connected ... to “how one sees things” – and, in seeing them, intuiting how

properly to live with them’ (Hauerwas with Goldstone, 2011, pp. 37, 60). I have commented

on this elsewhere:

Much spiritual vision is down to Christian nurture or formation ... . The church

teaches itself to be Christian and inducts new members into its faith primarily through

speaking the Christian language and beliefs, expressing the Christian attitudes and

affections, and practising the Christian behaviours in its worship, witness and service.

(And only secondarily by talking about these things, through specific forms of

instruction.)

But this needs to be supplemented by ... individuals or (preferably) small

groups self-consciously and explicitly [seeking] to relate the Christian tradition to their

own perceived beliefs, and their reflections on their own practices and situations ... [in

a] conversational, hermeneutical process ... [that] itself depends on nurturing the

character and capacities of spiritual vision and imagination, in order that these wider

connections may be seen. (Astley, 2013, pp. 51-52; cf. Green, 2009, pp. 81-82;

Heywood, 2009, 168-169)

This second form of Christian education inevitably includes a critical dimension

within the hermeneutical conversation that takes place between the Christian learners’ own

beliefs, narratives and values (their ordinary theology), grounded in and formed by their

human experience and practice, on the one hand; and the riches of the Christian tradition, on

the other. Spotting resonant connections and challenging discords between these disparate

things is the sort of ‘seeing’ (better ‘hearing’?) that is needed for this task. And that includes

engaging a critical perspective on the learners’ own story and vision (to adopt Tom Groome’s

phraseology) and on those within the Christian traditions that are brought alongside, so that


we can critically select and ‘see the point’ of them both. Such critical envisioning permits a

‘critical correlation’ akin to that advocated by Paul Tillich and David Tracy, and by many

Christian educationalists and other practical theologians. In this process, the learners’ own

hard-won insights, beliefs and values are never swamped or erased by their reading of

Christianity. For even when people ‘take over’ or ‘take up’ a piece of teaching, it will be

subtly changed in becoming part of their own belief- or value-system. Like all real

conversations, this is a dialogue in which both participants must have their say, and in which

the two viewpoints and theologies interact and eventually transmute into something that may

be rather different from either – and in a way that is often quite individual and deeply

personal. Christian educators must therefore accept that ‘people are not to repeat our word

but to speak their own; that may well be a “new” word for both’ (Groome, 1991, p. 263, cf.

251–252). Christian learners are not just formed as Christians, they become Christians for

themselves – and hence Christians-who-think-for-themselves. Here critical (that is, of course,

‘evaluative’) correlation truly leads to an ‘appropriation’ or ‘integration’ of the Christian

Faith with a learner’s life: with her identity and agency, and her own lived faith. This is, in

truth, a ‘learning from religion’ about themselves – to adopt a popular term from British RE

theory (cf. Groome, 1991, pp. 3, 250, 254; 2011, pp. 91–92; 2012, pp. 8–9). It often requires

the support and facilitation of teachers and other learners in more explicit, and in that sense

more ‘formal’, educational contexts and courses (Astley, 2013, 2014).

So formation cannot make fully adult Christians unless it includes ‘forming’ them, at

least to some extent and in some way, in the skills, dispositions and way of seeing required of

critical evaluators and personal adopters of the Christian Faith. And because this is the case,

the church must never expect that all who learn from Christianity, who ‘learn from Christ’,

will all learn the same things and become the same sort of disciples. Acknowledging the

variety of ways in which people may be disciples of Jesus – that is, the multiplicity of ways


in which we do in fact follow in the Way in our own way (Astley, 2007, pp. 108-110, ch. 8) –

is fundamental to any attempt to make disciples today. As it was, it seems, in New Testament

times also.

In my view, understanding the language of both formation and discipleship can and

should impel us to work towards a more profound and a more honest understanding of

developing discipleship through Christian education and Christian learning.


References

Archbishops’ Council (2003). Formation for ministry within a learning church (the ‘Hind

Report’). London: Church House Publishing.

Archbishops’ Council (2006). Shaping the future: New patterns of training for lay and

ordained. London: Church House Publishing.

Archbishops’ Council (2015). Developing discipleship. GS 1977

(https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/developing-discipleship-report-2015.aspx)

Astley, J. (1994). The philosophy of Christian religious education. Birmingham, ALA:

Religious Education Press.

Astley, J. (Ed.).(2000). Learning in the way: Research and reflection on adult Christian

education. Leominster: Gracewing.

Astley, J. (2002). Ordinary theology: Looking, listening and learning in theology. Aldershot:

Ashgate.

Astley, J. (2007a). Christ of the everyday. London: SPCK.

Astley, J. (2007b). Crossing the divide? In M. Felderhof, P. Thompson, & D. Torevell (Eds),

Inspiring faith in schools: Studies in religious education (pp. 175-186). Aldershot:

Ashgate.

Astley, J. (2011). Forms of faith and forms of communication. In J. Sullivan (Ed.),

Communicating faith (pp. 16-30). Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America

Press.

Astley, J. (2013). Ordinary theology and the learning conversation with academic theology.

In J. Astley & L. J. Francis (Eds), Exploring ordinary theology: Everyday Christian

believing and the church (pp. 45-54). Farnham: Ashgate.

Astley, J. (2014). Studying God: Doing theology. London: SCM Press.


Astley, J. & Day, D. (Eds) (1992). The contours of Christian education. Great Wakering:

McCrimmons.

Astley, J. & Francis, L. J. (Eds). (1994). Critical perspectives on Christian education: A

reader on the aims, principles and philosophy of Christian education. Leominster:

Gracewing Fowler Wright.

Astley, J., Francis, L. J., & Crowder, C. (Eds). (1996). Theological perspectives on Christian

formation: A reader on theology and Christian education. Leominster: Gracewing Fowler

Wright; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Bonhoeffer, D. (1959). The cost of discipleship. London: SCM Press.

Bornkamm, G. (1960). Jesus of Nazareth. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Borg, M. J. (2003). The heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a life of faith. New York:

HarperCollins.

Bunting, I. (2009). Formation and validity. Journal of Adult Theological Education, 6(1), 8-

30.

Byrne, B. (2000). The hospitality of God: A reading of Luke’s Gospel. Collegeville, MN:

Liturgical Press.

Byrne, B. (2004). Lifting the burden: Reading Matthew’s Gospel in the church today.

Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.

Conzelmann, H. (1969). An outline of the theology of the New Testament. London: SCM

Press.

Dunn, J. D. G. (1992). Jesus’ call to discipleship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Evans, C. A. (2012). Matthew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Evans, D. D. (1963). The logic of self-involvement: A theological study of everyday language

with special reference to the Christian use of language about God as creator. London:

SCM Press.


France, R. T. (2007). The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Franklin, E. (2001). Luke. In J. Barton & J. Muddiman (Eds), The Oxford Bible commentary

(pp. 922-959). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Francis, Pope (2013). The joy of the gospel: Apostolic exhortation on the proclamation of the

gospel in today’s world (Evangelii Gaudium). Dublin: Veritas.

Green, L. (2009). Let’s do theology: Resources for contextual theology. London: Mowbray.

Groome, T. H. (1991). Sharing faith: A comprehensive approach to religious education and

pastoral ministry. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.

Groome, T. H. (2011). Will there be faith? Depends on every Christian. Dublin: Veritas.

Groome, T. H. (2012), From life to faith to life: Some traces. Journal of Adult Theological

Education, 8(1), 8–23.

Hauerwas, S., with Goldstone, B. (2011). Disciplined seeing: Forms of Christianity and forms

of life. In S. Hauerwas, Learning to speak Christian (pp. 33–60). London: SCM Press.

Heywood, D. (2009). Learning how to learn: Theological reflection at Cuddesdon. Journal of

Adult Theological Education, 6(2), 164–75.

Hick, J. (1973). God and the universe of faiths. London: Macmillan.

Hill, D. (1972). The Gospel of Matthew. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott.

Hull, J. M. (1985). What Prevents Christian Adults from Learning? London: SCM Press.

Jeremias, J. (1971). New Testament theology: Part one – the proclamation of Jesus. London;

SCM Press.

Johnson, L. T. (2010). The writings of the New Testament: An interpretation. London: SCM

Press.

Koperski, V. (2010). Disciples, discipleship. In C. A. Evans (Ed.), The Routledge

encyclopedia of the historical Jesus (pp. 160-163). London: Routledge.

Manson, T. W. (1963). The teaching of Jesus: Studies of its form and content. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.


McIntosh, M. A. (2008). Divine teaching: An introduction to Christian theology. Oxford:

Blackwell.

McKenzie, L. (1982). The religious education of adults. Birmingham, ALA: Religious

Education Press.

McKenzie, L. (1991). Adult education and worldview construction. Malabar, FL: Krieger.

Müller, D. (1975). Disciple/ship. In C. Brown (Ed.), The new international dictionary of New

Testament theology, vol. 1 (pp. 483-490). Exeter: Paternoster.

Perkins, P. (1990). Jesus as teacher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rengstorf, K. H. (1967). µαθητής. In G. Kittel (Ed.), trans. and ed. G. W. Bromiley,

Theological dictionary of the New Testament, vol. IV (pp. 415-460). Grand Rapids, MI:

Eerdmans.

Roebben, B. & Warren, M. (Eds) (2001). Religious education as practical theology. Leuven:

Peeters.

Savage, H. (2007). Education for discipleship in the Diocese of Newcastle: A study.

Newcastle: Diocese of Newcastle.

Spohn, W. C. (1999). Go and do likewise: Jesus and ethics. New York: Continuum.

Sullivan, J. (2011). From formation to the frontiers: The dialectic of Christian education. In J.

Sullivan (Ed.), Communicating faith (pp. 1-15). Washington, DC: The Catholic University

of America Press.

Walton, R. L. (2013). Ordinary Discipleship. In J. Astley & L. J. Francis (Eds), Exploring

ordinary theology: Everyday Christian believing and the church (pp. 179-188). Farnham:

Ashgate.

Worthen, J. (2014). Towards a contemporary theology of discipleship: Sources for the

Church of England.


(https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2138282/towards%20a%20contemporary%20the

ology%20of%20discipleship%20-%20worthen%20november%2014.pdf )

Wright, T. (2010). Virtue reborn. London: SPCK.

Astley Forming Disciples - College of Humanities · FORMING DISCIPLES 2 Abstract While the...

Documents

Transcript of Astley Forming Disciples - College of Humanities · FORMING DISCIPLES 2 Abstract While the...