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| Tory Jeremiah D'Anna, Untitled |
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The first is following a high school lesson in either American literature, American history, or civics where "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. is used.
As a religion teacher following this lesson focused on Dr. King’s use of explicitly religious rhetoric, both in the sense of Judeo-Christian religious values but also the civil religion of the American ideal which borrows heavily from Christian principles, I do not have much need to be creative with finding my metaphor. King explicitly cites the conscientious objection of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abdenego to the demands of worship from Nebuchadnezzar and the Roman practice of feeding to lions Christians practicing their faith in opposition to the law. (King , par. 17) King is implicitly asserting the same thing as Peter in front of the Sanhedrin when responding to their demand to stop teaching, “We must obey God rather than men” (NABRE, Acts 5:29).
Beyond this, I see an additional metaphor that may be used from King’s rhetorical stylings. By invoking the religious principles the white clergymen profess and pointing out their hypocrisy and contradictions, King is leading these clergymen on an examination of conscience with specific applications to social justice. I would hope that my students were familiar with the examen by the time they reach tenth grade, but if not, they would have certainly approached it frequently in the context of my religion class.
King cites Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in his development of his ideas on just laws and the necessity of disobeying unjust laws (King, par. 12-13). I would present a timeline beginning with Hebrew Scripture and moving through the ages to show examples of the development of Catholic and other Christian sensibilities on just and unjust laws. I would include recent examples of holy civil disobedience and conscientious objection such as Charles Lwanga and his companions, Bonhoeffer, the White Rose movement, Dorothy Day, and Daniel Berrigan. We would read some excerpts of these primary sources and watch video clips about their activities. I would build on this sense of applying Scripture to social justice issues by looking at contemporary issues. If this class was occurring in the summer of 2018, I would not hesitate to apply church teaching to the separation of families at the Mexican border, using official church documents, responses of church authorities, news articles covering the religious dimension of the issue, and even pop culture analysis from celebrities who draw some inspiration from their faith.
Once we have considered all the presented information, we begin a Socratic seminar where the students keep one foot planted in the materials they have received in class while being encouraged to make connections to their other sources of learning, including pop culture and personal experience, asking questions of each other about the root causes and potential solutions to these injustices.
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The second lesson plan suggestion is for an add-on to an art class dealing with the concepts of light and darkness. The religious educator should be encouraging the sense of mystery evoked by the art to help the students develop their spirituality.
In this lesson, I would draw a religious parallel to the sense of light and dark. We would look at the
Scriptures with the oft-repeated analogies of good and evil to the light and darkness. But I would add to
this a look at II Corinthians 11:14 and the idea of a negative connotation to the light with Satan's
masquerading as an angel of light. I would also look at the notion of holy darkness, perhaps using the song
from Dan Schutte, but also elaborating on this sense of unknowing in the spiritual life, mystery, the dark
night of the soul perhaps. I would ask the students what were their emotional connections to light and
darkness. We would then look at several images, explicitly religious and not so, a greater sense of light and
darkness in images of both kind. We would discuss the feelings they associate with the artists' choices.
Scriptures with the oft-repeated analogies of good and evil to the light and darkness. But I would add to
this a look at II Corinthians 11:14 and the idea of a negative connotation to the light with Satan's
masquerading as an angel of light. I would also look at the notion of holy darkness, perhaps using the song
from Dan Schutte, but also elaborating on this sense of unknowing in the spiritual life, mystery, the dark
night of the soul perhaps. I would ask the students what were their emotional connections to light and
darkness. We would then look at several images, explicitly religious and not so, a greater sense of light and
darkness in images of both kind. We would discuss the feelings they associate with the artists' choices.
Works Cited:
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” 1963.
The New American Bible Revised Edition. The Catholic Study Bible. 3rd ed., edited by Donald Senior et al., Oxford UP, 2016.