ROOTED - Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Romans 11:33
33 Oh the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God…
Reflection: Sunday School, The Mind, and Church Culture!
Written By: Pastor Jesse Caro
I am reading a book to help me along this devotional summer journey thinking about our faith, doctrine, some historic teachings of the Catechisms, and so forth. The book I am reading is Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way, by J.I. PACKER and Gary A. Parrett. Their premise is this: generally speaking, the church (around the late 1800’s) stopped teaching the historic catechisms and eventually adopted the “Sunday School” approach. It is granted that some denominations continued to lean into the catechisms, but this was the exception not the rule. While there were reasons for this shift, Packer argues that the church lost a depth of teaching and theological groundwork in this process. That is, Sunday School was not an adequate substitute for the depth and effectiveness of systematically teaching the catechisms as a part of our church rhythm. To be clear, I am not advocating for this position as I write the Rooted devotional this summer, but I am always open to the notion that we must be creative to teach, intentionally and often, the depth of our faith.
I think the thing that I push against (the thing that makes me most uncomfortable) in the culture of the church (I am speaking VERY broadly, and not specifically about OUR church, but the modern “church culture”) is an overly sentimental, mushy, emotionally driven center of the faith. Let me illustrate (and I am not throwing stones)! A mindset (well-meaning as it is) of “I love Jesus and that is really all I need” divorced and unhinged from the actually, doctrinal truth of the Bible is vapid, empty and pointless. We cannot love Jesus divorced from what he SAID, and we can’t love Jesus without a basic theological construct of who He is, who God is. Let me put it this way, the doctrinal truth of the Bible informs who Jesus is and why his love is profound. Loving Jesus because he seems like a very nice person who died for me is not a deep and grounded faith. Theological depth feeds our love of God, informs it, and deepens it. As it were, the mind is a gateway to emotion, and the modern culture wants the emotional component divorced from the hard work of engaging the mind. What can come from this is 1) bad (i.e. dangerous) theology and 2) a feeling centered goal for the believer. I am nervous about this! Doctrinal truth and theological teaching are both the anchor for our faith and the means for a depth of love for Christ. Deep theology should make for wide love… in my opinion.
Prayer
Lord, may we be challenged today to have an informed faith out of which comes a great appreciation and love for all that you are!