A Learning Guide for Augustine’s On Christian Teaching

Abstract

Readers: I am very pleased to establish this new category of literature and learning engagement for the Christian Education Journal. In line with the Journal’s purpose and scope, and in concert with the collaborative spirit of the Society of Professors in Christian Education (SPCE) community, the aim for this initiative is to publish curricular resources designed to guide students into beneficially and productively learning from significant literary texts in our field. With this in mind, I thought it most apt for the first entry in this series to be the African bishop’s perennial masterwork, De Doctrina Christiana (DDC). I believe it is incumbent, particularly upon us who have the great privilege and burden of being vocational teachers in and for the Church and churches, to leverage the lived experiences with which God has providentially equipped us. Such is the genesis of this learning guide. When I was a student, having no significant familiarity with Saint Augustine aside from the coastal town in Florida, and having no significant exposure or experience with interpreting classical era original source material aside from the New Testament and The Stranger album, I was assigned to read DDC and produce, in 3 to 4 pages double-spaced, a summary and critique. Given my pre-academician grasp of the obvious (keener then than now), I sensed almost immediately that to assign or undertake such a task was presumptuous at best and dishonest at worst, and intellectually foolish in any conceivable case. So I went rogue and produced for the professor about 25 single-spaced pages of direct quotations with my attempted interpretative paraphrasing. The fact that this approach comported with an Augustinian hermeneutical protocol was lost on me at the time. What was not lost on me then, and what I am now deeply grateful for having been confronted with, was the immense depth and force of this slim volume. Perhaps more profoundly and influentially than any other single contribution, DDC articulates and demonstrates the weaving together of a three-corded doctrinal strand that must never be broken in the ministry of Christian teaching: the devotion to metaphysical truth, the cultivation of educational discernment, and the appropriation of these in service to learning and discipleship. When I became a professor, I created the learning guide presented here for my students. To the extent you may find it beneficial, please feel free to utilize it in part or whole. For some background and context, here are a few notes and clarifications for the learning guide, which begins in the next section with the editor’s introduction. Tolle Lege: Learning Guides for Reading Well