Protecting One Another
David I. Smith on why Christian educators owe students more than good intentions
David I. Smith is Professor of Education, Director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning, and Coordinator of the de Vries Institute for Global Faculty Development at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is also Senior Editor of the International Journal of Christianity and Education. His books include On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom, Everyday Christian Teaching, Learning from the Stranger: Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity, and Digital Life Together: The Challenge of Technology for Christian Schools. In 2024, he received Calvin University's Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching.
Question and answer 107 seem to me to be the funniest part of the Heidelberg Catechism, a document not typically recognized for its humour.1 The Heidelberg Catechism is a Reformed catechism published in 1563 as a teaching tool and still recognized as a doctrinal standard in many Reformed churches. It contains 129 questions and answers covering basic Christian doctrine and responsibilities, and question 107, following on from discussion of the biblical commandment against murder, goes like this:
Is it enough then
that we do not murder our neighbor
in any such way?
One wonders whether this was a live question in the churches of the Reformation. “Pastor, you talk about a lot of things, but would it be enough if we could just avoid murdering each other? That would amount to success, right?” It seems like a low bar, until we recall how far our society falls short on even this basic norm. Perhaps it’s not such a foolish question after all. The initial answer is impeccably concise and unambiguous:
No.
It seems we have to think a little further than avoiding bloodshed if we want to know how to treat those around us. The answer continues with a few more pointers:
By condemning envy, hatred, and anger
God wants us
to love our neighbors as ourselves,
to be patient, peace-loving, gentle,
merciful, and friendly toward them,
to protect them from harm as much as we can,
and to do good even to our enemies.
The phrase that has stood out to me recently is the one that names the requirement to protect our neighbours from harm as much as we can. It’s an important phrase. It resists resting content with the idea that we don’t mean anyone any harm, that we have generally benign feelings toward the humans around us, that we are nice people and far be it from us to hurt anyone. It resists talking about love of neighbour as if the phrase just referred to an intention, a state of mind, or a sense of ourselves as kindly, agreeable people. It even pushes us a little beyond the idea of doing good, mentioned in the next line, because we can do at least a few good things without taking very much trouble to find out what is harming others. It assigns to us, as a direct consequence of Christian belief, the responsibility to actively protect others from harm “as much as we can.”
Of course, the qualifying clause is important. There are bad things that will happen to our neighbours that we could not have prevented. In such cases our responsibilities turn towards compassion, mercy, lament, and service. But there is something to consider before the bad thing happens. Loving our neighbour also entails protection, helping to avoid the harm that threatens. Sometimes this does lie within our power.
It does not take much reflection to find the connection to the work of schooling. As many of us can testify, students, who are our neighbours, suffer harms in schools.
There are catastrophic harms, since modern North American schools have so frequently become places where we do literally murder one another. There are interpersonal harms, such as bullying, assault, theft, or ridicule. There are systemic harms, such as mis-diagnosis of learning needs, poor, indifferent, or hostile teaching, or lack of access to needed educational services. There are subtle harms, tied to the complex ways in which a learner’s sense of self and of their worth and possibilities are impacted by verbal messages, visual environments, curricular narratives, and teaching choices. Schools are places of enormous potential for the good; they give us a great deal that we need. They are also places where we experience harm. Not all of this is within our control. But some of it is.
If there were a convenient way to eliminate the possibility of harm occurring in schools, we would have found it by now. Schools are all too human, partaking of our failings, prejudices, and hostilities as well as our hopes and service to our communities. Failure is at some level baked in, and all of our well-meant programs fall short of what could be. Yet being an educator, particularly an educator who is a Christian and accountable to the command to love our neighbour, entails commitment to protect others from harm as much as we can.
That involves more than being nice. Our students differ in their experience of culture, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, social location, and more. Navigating our differences well requires more than good intentions, especially when we are trying to maximize learning in their midst. Some knowledge, planning, and skill are needed. How might we build a community committed to protecting one another from harm amid differences? How would we commit to doing so “as much as we can”?
It does not seem a stretch to suggest that “as much as we can” might include a willingness to question and re-examine our current practices. It might include seeking out tools, such as a short book offering discussion, activity resources, and reflection questions. A book like the new one by Edith van der Boom of the Institute for Christian Studies, for instance. It might involve reading it alongside colleagues and actively discussing what to do about the bits that seem helpful. It might involve reading it less in the mode of whether it is the final word on everything and more in the mode of “can I find something that helps?” It might involve taking one thing from it and starting a small process of change in your own classroom. As an educator, you already know that study and reflection can help protect others from harm. This applies to your own study and reflection, and a new book is an opportunity to grow. ◆
Dr. Edith van der Boom's Cultivating Learning Communities of Belonging explores belonging, racial justice, Indigenous perspectives, human sexuality, and restorative practices in school communities. You are invited to the book launch celebration on Saturday, April 18 in Burlington, ON (RSVP). If this piece has you thinking about graduate study in educational leadership, the deadline for ICS's MA-EL and MWS-E programs is April 1 (details).
I quote from Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions (Grand Rapids, MI: Faith Alive Christian Resources, 1988), p. 63.