Based on a recommendation from a colleague, I read A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form. I know the title doesn’t line up with openness theology, scripture, or the teachings of my church. But hear me out - the guts of the book line up well with mostmovedmover.com. In this post, I am going to tweak his quotes to put a religious spin on them. Think of it like a remix¹ or an evolution of a concept, not a serial reproduction.² I have italicized the words that I have replaced when I am quoting from the book.

Hathaway’s lament

The cultural religion problem is a self-perpetuating monster: students learn about religion from their teachers, and teachers learn about it from their teachers, so this lack of understanding and appreciation for theology in our culture replicates itself indefinitely. Worse, the perpetuation of this “pseudo-theology,” this emphasis on the accurate yet mindless manipulation of facts and commandments, creates its own culture and its own set of values. Those who have become adept at it derive a great deal of self-esteem from their success. The last thing they want to hear is that religion is really about raw creativity and aesthetic sensitivity. Many a member has come to grief when they discover, after a decade of being told they were “good at religion,” that in fact they have no real creative being and are just very good at following directions. Religion is not about following directions; it’s about making new directions*!*³

If learning is reduced to mere data transmission, if there is no sharing of excitement and wonder, if teachers and leaders themselves are passive recipients of information and not creators of new ideas, what hope is there for God’s children? If faith is to the teacher and leader an arbitrary set of rules, and not the outcome of a creative process and the result of aesthetic choices and desires, then, of course, it will feel that way to the next-generation. Teaching is not about information*!* It’s about an honest creative relationship between God and His children.⁴ The result of teaching theology or religion without relational creativity at its center is that the student becomes a passive participant in the creative act. Students are making statements to fit a preexisting proof-pattern, not because they mean them. They are being trained to ape arguments, not to intend them as God. So not only do they have no idea what God is saying, they have no idea of what they themselves are saying.⁵

Well, that was a bit direct, but maybe this remix sparked something in you - it has in me. If I don’t have a personal relationship to my belief and religion, and if it doesn’t move me and send chills down my spine, then I will find something else to believe.⁶ I have always been irritated by a testimony I have heard more than once. It goes something like, “If I wasn’t born in this church, I don’t think I would have been Mormon.” That type of testimony doesn’t really send chills, does it? I am drawn to my faith and learning by the possibility of connection - a new, unforeseen relationship that will improve my intuition and perhaps permanently change the way I think about God. I suppose that’s really a key part of it for me: I want to be changed. I want to be affected in a fundamental way.⁷ This is really what keeps me pondering my path with God - the chance that I might glimpse some kind of secret underlying truth, some sort of message from Him.⁸

When we stop to ponder what a perfect teacher needs, it is the ability to let students create on their own. Nobody wants to be good at aping arguments when they grow up. So, the right thing for God to do as your perfect teacher would most often be nothing. That’s a thing most teachers (and adults generally) seem to have a hard time understanding.⁹ Can we realize that a perfect teacher, a perfect God is not one that directs us in every last thing like little robots? He is one that most often does nothing so we¹⁰ can learn to be creators like Him.

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