Integrite Spring 2013

50 Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal formation” that orients faithfulness to the totality of life. Christian education is not just about developing cognitive constructs that prepare students to engage in battle against all the negative things in the world; it is about fashioning Christians in new ways that demonstrate the reality of God’s love and justice. This is the essence of John Westerhof’s article “Fashioning Christians in Our Day.” Making Christians is a key component of schooling Christians: Thus the making of Christians involves the practice of living a particular way of life. The process is similar to that used in learning a craft such as stonemasonry, a sport such as basketball, or an art form such as dance. The learner apprentices himself or herself to a master. Through observation, imitation, and practice the apprentice learns a multitude of skills. The apprentice also learns a language and is initiated into a history. Christian apprenticeship is discipleship. (271) This is not to disparage the important task of building conceptual models of faith and learning and the serious attempts to relate faith to critical inquiry. The seminal projects of theologians such as Thomas F. Torrance, Bernard Lonergan, and Wolfhart Pannenberg provide important contributions to the conversations on the relationship of faith and critical thinking. At the end of the day, however, even such critical stalwarts as Bernard Lonergan have argued that a scientific theology, “if understood within the frame of a very broad and duly rigorous and sophisticated epistemology, can remain profoundly hermeneutical and formative for life” (Thiselton 156). With this in mind, perhaps the construct of faithful presence ought to be the starting point for Christian education.

Hunter recognizes that Christans are aliens and strangers in the world.

Cultures are certainly broken in manifold ways through violence and injustice, and ultimately only God can change them in ways that will be permanent. This does not mean that followers of Christ must live in opposition to everything in life; however, it is still possible to make the desert bloom with flowers at certain times and in specific places. This is the vision of shalom that Nicholas Wolterstorff describes in his compelling book Until Justice and Peace Embrace: The Kuyper Lectures for 1981 Delivered at the Free University of Amsterdam (1983): “To dwell in shalom is to enjoy living before God, to enjoy living in one’s physical surroundings, to enjoy living with one’s fellows, to enjoy life with oneself” (70). For Hunter and Wolterstorff, this vision of shalom incorporates new and transformative relationships with other human beings in an ethical community that recognizes that peace cannot be secured in an unjust culture, so it seeks out what is good for all. Shalom also seeks to find delight in its physical surroundings and to shape the world in ways that are pleasing to God. Ultimately, according to Wolterstorff, shalom incorporates “right, harmonious relationships to God and delight in his service” (126). This model of shalom, according to Hunter, is the starting place for any small impact that Christians may have on the world. Christians are called to follow Christ and enflesh this vision in all areas of life. Although the church must wait for a final fulfillment in the new heaven and