Follow St. Paul through Greece and Turkey
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Dr. Mark Schuler
About Dr. Mark Schuler
Posts by Dr. Mark Schuler:
Am I really hip?
For the last year, both when I was vacancy pastor, and subsequently, I have devoted substantive time each week to help my struggling church navigate the pandemic with the use of technology. In fact, first on my list today is producing Sunday’s online service. And we have hung together as a congregation. I could not have done this without the help of many others, especially Rhoda.
The church always adapts to the challenges and needs of the times.
Read more about such efforts in Wired.
Sabbatical begins
After two delays, I am now two days into a sabbatical. I am amazed how many little details in my academic life need work. That work has begun with this website. With Flash gone as of 1 January 2021, I have had to re-record my New Testament lectures into .mp4 content. That work is done and they can be located under my Teaching menu. I have also linked in updated lectures from THL310.
But I have also started reading. First on my stack is Craig Keener’s Christobiography.
He articulates the genre of the Gospels and compares them to the conventions of the biographies produced in the early Empire. He is asking what ancient readers of such works would expect in terms of “historical information and flexibility in presenting that information” (p. 24). How this study might challenge a doctrinal understanding of inspiration and its corollaries (in the LCMS) will keep my interest.
Who matters?
Luke addressed his gospel to “most excellent Theophilus.” The designation “most excellent” points to an individual of status, perhaps the official in Nero’s administration at Rome who is hearing the case that Paul appealed to the emperor (Acts 25:11). Nero’s rule was tyrannical. He had recently murdered his mother. To address such power was a dangerous task.
Nevertheless, Luke boldly speaks the truth (Luke 1:4) to Theophilus. Luke asserts in the birth story that Jesus is Savior (Luke 2:11), a title reserved for the emperor as the savior of the Fatherland, that is, of Rome and its elites. To drive his truth home, Luke includes in his gospel a range of stories that occur nowhere else in the other gospels. These stories illustrate that Jesus is Savior of all, not just the few. In Luke’s gospel the poor and the marginalized matter.
The birth of Jesus in Luke is announced to shepherds, because shepherds matter. The child Jesus is revered by two street people at the temple in Jerusalem because Simeon and Anna matter. Only in this gospel does Jesus interrupt a funeral procession because the widow of Nain matters. Only in this gospel does Jesus commend a good Samaritan and a Samaritan leper who returns to give thanks for healing because Samaritans matter. A sinful woman, a repentant tax collector, a woman who lost a coin, and two unknown disciples on the road to Emmaus experience God’s mercy because they matter. Luke alone tells of a father killing the fatted calf for a prodigal son because even this son matters. The Lukan Jesus speaks of a persistent woman who keeps demanding justice because she matters. And in this gospel alone Jesus says to a criminal being crucified with him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Yes, even a criminal matters. Jesus is Savior of all.
Luke could have spoken the truth about Jesus by simply writing, “Jesus is Savior of all.” But Luke never uses that phrase. Instead, Luke makes the point by invoking the term “Savior” and then telling story after story about those who are marginalized and mistreated but who still matter to the Savior of all.
It is not enough to say that everyone matters. One must also clearly name those despised by the culture, those mistreated, those denied justice, those with a knee to their necks, as people who matter to the Jesus who is Savior of all.
We who follow Jesus do justice to Luke’s stirring portrayal when we do the same. In this moment, our opportunity as Christians is to speak the truth to power and say, “Black lives matter,” and then to work to make it so.
Thinking about the future
Approaching this fall, I faced the challenge of teaching in such a way that I could move easily between f2f and online and support students who might be out for a positive COVID-19 test or a quarantine. I also wanted to support students who might be uncomfortable coming to the classroom.
In addition, although the university promised to observe CDC guidelines for physical distancing in the classroom, I was quite sure such would not be possible with our need to keep enrollments high (for financial reasons) and our promise to open f2f in the fall. [Indeed, one of my classes this fall had 18 students in a room for 24 students with most students sitting with two persons at a 5 ft table.]
So I decided to teach using multi modalities simultaneously. Students could choose to attend class f2f or remotely and move freely between the two modalities. The technology is discussed in previous blog posts.
I have also reshaped my classes to be flipped in form, with most lecturing pre-recorded and class time devoted to exploring and working with course content. When I do lecture, I use the Zoom whiteboard projected in the classroom so that both remote and f2f students see the same thing. I was also hoping that sufficient numbers would choose to participate remotely allowing me to then keep f2f students 6 ft apart.
By midterm I am happy to report that on most days half or more of each class is remote, students in the classroom are sufficiently distanced, and I have been able to serve
- a first-generation college student from a multi-generational household afraid the student might bring the virus home
- a mom who had trouble arranging for her son to get care so she could attend class one day a week
- three students who came down with COVID-19, one of whom is a long-hauler and will to be back this term
- four other students quarantined
- three students at a distance who had decided not to come back to the university this fall.
I have run three cycles of written feedback by students on the course mechanics (every two weeks) and have received unexpectedly positive feedback.
Teaching classes in a flipped and multi-modality way seems to be a successful way to serve students during the pandemic.
But it also seems to me that this approach may be appropriate for education the other side of the pandemic. A flipped and multi-modality approach would let me continue to serve the varied circumstances within which students will be seeking education in the midst of highly complex lives.
I can do this and at a relatively low cost. But will the university make such an approach possible?