THE CHURCH AS A JUST, REDEEMING COMMUNITY

Asbury Theological Seminary Dennis L. Wayman 1975

 

Believers have the church. Believers are the church. Believers serve the church. The church has been challenged and defended, changed and rearranged, divided and united, questioned and accepted. The church has existed with varying forms and practices, with differing polities and emphases. The church is complex and yet simple, practical and yet idealistic, logical and yet problematic. The church is the method for making the manifold wisdom of God known. The church is the vital and indispensable means of salvation. The church brings the estranged back into relationship with God and man.

The function of the church must be understood if the church is to be effective. The church does not exist objectively but only within the lives of its members. The church is not a magical entity existing in a spiritual realm, but it is persons re­discovering the unity of communion for which they were created. This reinstatement of the goals of creation is only possible because of Christ as the head, but Scrip­ture also places emphasis on the responsibility of the Body——persons who make up the church. The emphasis on the use of mediators for the proclaiming of the word of God is a recurring theme throughout Scripture. The Body of Christ acts as mediator bringing the salvation message to the estranged. This essay is an attempt to under­stand the function of the church as it fulfills its mediatorial responsibility in the redemptive action of God.

It is a very exciting experience to come suddenly upon a cognitive lever with hooks to turn things over so that you can see: to look beyond the apparent to the not—so—apparent, to look for the universality of existence in society, in institutions, and in human behavior. If we can understand how redemption is at work in the world, we can improve its operation. To be aware of the blueprint for construction increases the chance that efforts of the various contractors will fit together. For the church to be effective it must be turned over, diagnosed, charted, and understood. The lever I am examining here is one of very recent development. Based on the work of Jean Piaget, further developed by Lawrence Kohlberg, it is enlarged and integrated in a 1974 doctoral dissertation by John S. Stewart. The lever is called the Organismic-Structural-Developmental approach (hereafter noted as “o-s-d”). This lever was developed out of educational concerns for moral development, is based on observable criteria, and has been validated in cross-cultural research. This is not to suggest that everything worth knowing about the church can be analyzed in this way. But these are responsible starting points on issues of mutual concern to secular education and to the church: issues about moral thinking and development, scientific methods of observation, and a search for universals in cross-cultural research.

Two operational definitions will move us quickly ahead in this essay: A Christian believer is a person in relationship with Jesus Christ in such a way as to be living in a faith relationship with God through Christ and to be making God’s will his own. The church is any association of believers in transactional relationships with each other carrying forward the purposes of God in creation and of Christ in establishing the fellowship of believers.

This essay is arranged to present a digest of o-s-d theory, describing its various components and understandings. I will then develop some implications of that lever for the church.

 

The O-S-D Approach to Humans

 An understanding of humans is at the heart of any understanding of the function of the church. We must understand the dynamics operative in human’s behavior, thinking, motivation, and relationships. We must also understand the relationship between the environmental influences and humans’ personal freedom, since we do not accept a deterministic view of human passivity.

The scriptural statements about the human shows that they are not blank states upon which the environment writes its definition, but instead humans are creatures who make choices for which they are held responsible. The consequences of a person’s decisions will influence possibilities in future decisions. Scripture expresses this entire concept through the use of the covenant motif. Individual humans are given freedom to respond or to reject the covenant expectations; the consequences are not arbitrary manipulations by a divine being, but understandable results based on the consequences of human decisions and the forfeiture of the individual human’s relationship with God. To disobey God is to act against the created relationship of the human to God and the outcome is separation and hardships (Gen. 3).

The choices of humans will determine the relationship they will have with God, with other humans, and with the entire creation. (Consider, for example, motivational language of Deuteronomy 28.) The human is seen as an active participant in his destiny. The human is not a mechanical creation who has no choice but to do the will of his creator. The human is a free moral agent. It is  the human who determines what self—definition, whether to respond positively to the offered grace of God and be an heir, or to respond negatively and be a prodigal. If the human responds positively, then the choice places the human in complementary relationship with the environment, making humans to see more clearly the responsibility they have to live in harmony with the earth. But, when the human responds negatively the human will be in a disjunctive relationship with the world and will be constantly competing and manipulating it for personal benefit. Either way the human responds, the human is free to choose and those choices will determine how future choice possibilities become available.

O-S-D theory expresses a concept of humans similar to that of Scripture when Stewart says:

 

Man is intrinsically active and motivated and does not need to be primarily motivated by the environment. Man is seen, then, as active and autotelic; not as passive and heterotelic. Since the relationship between organism and environment [5 transactional, they influence and shape each other. The organism perceives and interprets the external world in his own terms, and constructs his knowledge of the world on his own terms. Conversely, he is also influenced by the external world, and adapts and changes to accommodate it. Organism and environment influence, mold, and shape each other. And even when the influence from the environment predominates, the receiving organism does not receive the environment as it is.

Knowledge is not a copy of reality. Knowledge is a construction (S: 131) [1]

 

John Stewart points out that the organism is not operating in an environmental vacuum, but is actively involved in transaction with that environment. The choices the human makes will determine the possibilities of future decisions. O-S-D theory sees the human as being part of a larger unit of relationships which define how the human actively engages the created world. The human was not created to passively accept other-definition, but will define the self through relationships set up in self—motivated activity.

Scripture also points out that the human is not a conglomeration of body, soul, and spirit, but is instead an integrated person whose many capacities unite to make one individual. Within the Hebrew language there was no word for religion, but the faith of the people was seen as including every aspect of their lives. There is never the Gnostic dissection of body and spirit, but one holistic organism that acts as a whole. Emil Brunner puts it clearly:

 

It is a well—known fact, at least within the Christian Church, and among readers of the Bible, that the Bible understands man as a whole, as an entity consisting of ‘soul” or “spirit” and “body.” The Biblical view leaves no room for the dualistic notion that though the “spirit” (or “soul”) is of divine origin and divine in character, the body on the other hand is something lower and inferior (1952, p. 61).

 

The same concept is stated by Reinhold Niebuhr:

 

The Christian faith in God as Creator of the world transcends the canons and antinomies of rationality . . . He creates the world. This world is not God; but it is not evil because it is not God. Being God’s creation it is good.

The consequence of this conception of the world upon the view of human nature in Christian thought is to allow an appreciation of the unity of body and soul in human personality which idealists and naturalists have sought in vain . . . The Monism of the Biblical view is something other than the failure to differentiate “physis,” “psyche’ and “nous,” which characterized Greek thought before Anaxagoras, nor is it merely the consequence of an undeveloped psychology. It is ultimately derived from the Biblical view of God as the Creator and of the Biblical faith in the goodness of creation (1964, 12-13).

 

This same view is also expressed in o-s-d theory:

 

The human is seen as an integrated functional whole, not as a series of differentiated parts or as an accumulation of stimulus-response bonds. Mind and body, and organism and environment are not seen as distinctly different entities that function independently or in opposition to each other. Rather they are seen as different aspects of one coordinated process in transactional relationship. The human organism naturally exists in a state of organization, thus organismic theory stresses the unity, integration, coherence, and consistency of the person (S: 131).

 

The relationship of the human to the created world, as Stewart explains, is obviously congruent with the creation narrative. The human is not separate from the remainder of creation, but is instead part of that creation. The human’s choices will determine the outcomes of the human’s relationship with that world.  The human can live in harmony, or in opposition; it is a choice. Unity with all of life is explicit within the Scriptural message. Just as the human is not distinct from the rest of creation, the human and creation are not distinct from God. Creation, including the human, must be in relationship to God, or will be in a dysfunctional relationship with its source. In all of creation, however, the key is the human, for only the human is free to free to choose and determine the path of human being. Nature is “groaning in travail’ waiting for the human to choose in accord with God’s created human destiny (Romans 8:19-23). The human is the key to creation, and the church has the mediator role of introducing rightness to the human. The human will always be free to respond and the church must make its message as comprehensible as possible. How the human functions then is one of the primary goals in understanding the role and mission of the church. The first section of this essay is concerned with the human, the second with human social organizations as they develop the human, and the last with the implications for the church.

A summary statement of o-s-d theory concerning the human will conclude this section. Stewart states: 

In summary, organismic psychology views man as active, autotelic, and involved in his own growth and development. He is seen as organismic rather than as behavioristic. He is seen as humanistic rather than as mechanistic. And he is seen as holistic rather than as particularistic. lie has consciousness, inner mental behavior, and is not sharply divided from his environment. Values, knowledge, and structure do not come only from the external world in a process of transmission, conditioning, or introjection. The raw data of the world is received by the senses of the organism and is processed by the internal structure of the human mind and the organismic valuing process that is basic to biological existence and functioning, and is thus transformed in terms of the individual’s being. Thus in transaction with the world the organism constructs knowledge and values. The process being a transactional one results in a great deal of congruence among individual views, but also allows for a reasonable degree of individuality. The congruence is also based on the fact that there seems to be a great deal of universality in the function and structure of the bio— psychological organism that make up the human species. Within the context and confines of a partially limiting and determining world the human organism has the capacity or potential for some degree of significant self—determina­tion (S: 134-135).

 

Organismic-Structural-Developmental Theory

 

The combination of these three terms into a single eclectic version of educational psychology is the work of John S. Stewart. He has chosen three distinct, but inter­related categories for understanding this lever we are employing. Only brief summaries are given here (S: 176-372).

Organismic—The basic character of the term is to describe a theory in which,

“the organism in its totality is as essential to an explanation of its elements as its elements are to an explanation of the organism (S: 178). The organism is more than just the sum of its parts, it is a movement from less whole to more whole. This movement is also intrinsic to life itself, the organism is “self—acting and self— moving (S: 183). Stewart states: “The organism is not like a machine or an artificial construction that requires external action, force, or motivation. The source of its activity is internal and of a piece with itself, is indeed itself” (S: 183). Then quoting Smuts: “A living organism is not an organism plus life, as if life were something different and additional to it; it is just the organism in its unique character as a whole, which can be closely defined (S: 184). Since by definition the organism is seen as a consistent whole, it then follows in the organismic view that all changes in human behavior involve the total organism. It can easily be seen that this theory envisions a ‘synthesized and integrated cosmos in which the systems, sub­systems, components, and organisms are not only intimately related to each other, but mutually give each other meaning” (S: 199).

 

The relationship of the organism—that is, the human—to the environment has been described by the term “transactional. This term is necessary to understand the difference between the organismic view and that of the behavioral model. Stewart makes the distinction:

Interaction is a term that reflects the relationship that exists between two things acting on each other, against each other, in the sense that they are balanced in some kind of causal interconnection. Thus a gear interacts with another gear. In the behavioristic view of man one organism is seen as inter­acting with another or with the environment in the stimulus—response sense.

Transaction, on the other hand, was conceived by Dewey as depicting a different state of events more total, organismic and systematic. Consequently, for Dewey, two machines interact, but two people transact (S: 43).

 

The importance of this distinction cannot be overstated. The central issue is whether the human is inevitably a product of a causal interconnection with the environment, or whether the human is freely acting and actually changing the environment. The accountability of the human before God clearly places the human in a position of self-motivated behavior, though most assuredly this behavior has been influenced by the environment with which the human has freely transacted. Stewart states it as: “What the organism knows, what there is to be known, and the organism that knows are all interdependent and mutually-determining phases of a transactional cosmos” (S. 199).

The transactions of the organism with the environment are but part of a larger whole which give definition to the organism and to the environment. Thus, to attempt an understanding of each transaction, one must understand the larger whole of which this holistic response belongs. Angyal expresses it: “the human being is both a unifier, an organizer of his immediate personal world, and a participant in what he conceives as the superordinate whole to which he belongs” (S: 203). No clearer statement can be made about the individual Christian response in the Body of Christ; “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so is with Christ” (Romans 12:12, NASV).

It can be seen clearly that the organismic understanding of the human empowers one to posit that the human is capable of responsible self-determining action. Not only does it make these characteristics possible but it makes action, judgment, and decision necessary components of the transactional engagement mandatory for life. The human is created for responsible relationship with the created world and with the Creator of both the human and that total cosmos.

 

Structural—Structuralism is an approach toward observable data so as to deter­mine the basic patterns that govern a specific domain. Stewart characterizes four convictions of this approach taken from the work of Gardner:

1. That there is structure underlying all human behavior and intellectual functioning;

2. That this structure can be revealed by orderly analysis and scientific investigation;

3. That this structure has cohesiveness and meaning; and

4. That structures have generality, or some degree of interdependence (some psychologists call this transferability, but it basically refers to the fact that many behaviors can be related to the same structure(s) and that many structures can be related to a particular behavior pattern), (S:208-209)

 

There are two main assumptions that structuralists use and these, according to Gardner, are:

1. That investigation of diverse groups from many cultures, children, adults, primitives, moderns, and others, can shed light on all human experience and reveal the underlying common ground of human nature, and

2. That the distinctive characteristics of human beliefs, development, and institutions is a reflection of the fundamental nature of human thought rooted in the biological structure of the organism and its mind (S: 209).

 

Thus the basis of this view of organizing observable reality into structures that are not seen but are manifested by empirical reality rests on two interesting assumptions. The first is that there is an underlying human nature common to all humans regardless of culture or situation; and the second is that humanity’s observable actions are rooted in the biological structure of the organism. The universality of the human condition is clearly in accordance with the given biological structure in the specific creation of the human by God.

Using the methodology of structuralism one will conceptualize existing data so as to infer structures of human behavior, which are based on the biological nature of the organism. Piaget has developed a definition for structure that involves three key elements: “the ides of wholeness, the idea of transformation, and the idea of self-regulation” (S: 215). He posits that “a structure is a systematic whole of self-regulating transformations” (S: 215).

The structure is whole in that, “it is a system governed by laws that apply to the system as such, and not only to one or another element in the system” (S: 216). For a structure to be in existence it is necessary that the elements in the structure be related to one another in such a manner as to be defined by the universal law or inherent characteristics of the structure.

The structure is also never static and is always in a dynamic transformation. But these transformations are also systematic and lawful: “the structure is preserved or enriched by the interplay of its transformation laws, which never yield results external to the system nor employ elements that are external to it” Cs: 215). The best example of transformation is the use of structural laws to rearrange vocabulary into distinctively different meanings yet never breaking the transformation laws in the process.

The third concept, that of self-regulation, means simply that in order to function the system never needs go outside its transformational laws and elements. This implies closure and self-maintenance. The structure can of course be a substructure in relation to a large structure, but it never loses its boundaries, always existing within its laws.

The whole conceptual area of structure is extremely important for the under­standing of the o-s-d approach and will be further explained as we look at Piaget’s cognitive theory.

Piaget’s cognitive theory is a primary foundation of the o-s-d theory and it is recommended that to gain a better understanding than this brief exposition one turn to Piaget’s works. According to Piaget intelligence is adaptation and “is comprised of three major components: content, function, and structure” (S:220).

Content is the empirical behavior or observable data that one can experience with the senses. The content is extremely influenced by cultural and environmental experiences and is the primary basis for most psychometric intelligence teats.

Function is “the biologically-rooted invariant part of intelligence. It is the way the organism transacts with the world” (S: 221) and consists of two basic processes: organization and adaptation.

 

Organization is the underlying systematic pattern of relationships that characters the human mind. Organization makes it possible for the mind to interpret and process the input it receives. Adaptation is the external process that is possible because of the underlying organization. The human mind adapts to the world in two ways: it assimilates and it accommodates. Assimilation is the process whereby the mind receives data from the world in terms of existing knowledge, familiar patterns, the known. It is the side of adaptation by which the world is transformed to fit the organism; it is taking in and operating on the input in terms of the person. Accommodation, on the other hand, is the complementary process by which the environment operates, so to speak, on the organism and forces the mind to change its internal functioning in terms of the external world (S: 221-222).

 

 The entire process of assimilation and accommodation is known as the equilibration process. This process is at the basis of the o-s-d theory and operates like this:  When the organism approaches an element in its environment with which it is familiar, such as a chair, it has a cognitive category in which to assimilate this chair. But when the organism approaches something in the environment for which it does not have an existing category, such as a couch, then it will either distort the perception and force this new object to fit the category of chair, or will have to create a new category. This process is called accommodation. As assimilation and accommodation function as complementary processes they form a dynamic equilibrium regulating cognitive activity.“ The mind seeks to keep things in balance, and growth (quantitative change) and development (qualitative change) proceed through the continuous process of going through cycles of equilibrium-disequilibrium-equilibrium-disequilibrium” (S: 222).

 Function is the biological invariant and internally determined process of the organism. It differs from content in that content is easily changed and is very dependent on the environment for its form and shape, but function is determined by the very biological makeup of the brain. It is the given way an organism has to approach reality.

 Structure is the third aspect of Piaget’s cognitive theory and is the unifying ingredient. It is structure that the functioning develops and makes itself apparent in content. Flavell comments: What are structures in Piaget’s system?  They are the organizational properties of intelligence, organizations created through function­ing and inferable from the behavioral contents whose nature they determine (S:223). Two other Piagetian scholars, Ginsburg and Opper, further explain this understanding when they state:

As a result of the tendencies toward adaptation and organization, new structures are continually being created out of the old ones which will be employed to assist the individual in his interaction with the world. Looking at the matter another ‘say, structures are necessary for adaptation and organization. One could neither adapt to the environment nor organize one s processes if there were no basic structures available at the outset. On the other hand, the very existence of a structure, which by Piaget’s definition is an organized totality, entails the necessity for organization and adaptation. There are, however, important differences between the invariant functions and the structures. As the individual progresses through the life span, the functions will remain the same but the structures will vary, and appear in a fairly regular sequence. Another way of saying this is that intellectual development proceeds through a series of stages with each stage characterized by a different kind of psychological structure. An individual of any age must adapt to the environment and must organize his responses continually, but the instruments by which he accomplishes this—the psychological structures—will change from one age level to another (S: 223-224).

 

It can easily be seen that structure is a necessary ingredient for the organism’s transactions with the environment. As it actively engages its environment, the individual’s organizational thought patterns or structures will undergo dynamic transformations, but always within the laws of transformation in a self-regulating manner. These transformations occur in order to maintain equilibrium both for the individual structure and for the organism as a whole. Stewart states: “The transformations that structures undergo are equilibrated, or dynamically balanced and self-regulated, in increasingly more complex, integrated, and effective ways with maturation, experience, and transaction with the environment” (S: 224).

In understanding the o-s-d approach, it is necessary to understand the distinction that must be made between content and structure. It will be remembered that content is the observable aspect of human behavior, and that these are tied to the distinct environment of the individual organism, while structure is the “underlying logical reasoning that generated the answer (S: 227). When one is trying to determine, it is not enough to observe content. One must find out what is the individual’s justification for this specific content, and, out of what organizational category the person is drawing support. The content itself may be the same with two in­dividuals, but when the structure is determined it might be found to come from different organizational structures.

To illustrate this, let us take the content action of Sunday morning attendance at church. Two individuals could make the same response (content) and attend church every Sunday. But although their content is the same, one must probe to the under­lying logical reasoning to determine what organizational structure is operative. When asked, the first person might say, “It is very important for me that others realize I am a Christian. I am trying to win favor in the sight of God and other people by attending services.” When the second individual is asked, the response might be, “I have found that in order to fully operate in my Christian commitment I must find support within the Body of Christ; corporate services are where I receive this help.” It can be seen that the structure has changed from the first individual to the second. The first is responding from a structure of outside acceptance whether from God or from other Christians, while the second is responding out of structure of internal self-actualization. Either is responding by going to church but the structure of motivation is different.

It can be seen that the structures change from individual to individual and that they are the outgrowth of the individual’s functioning. Stewart points out that research has shown there are…

a limited number of distinct patterns of structural thought—patterns and logic systems that are indicative of universality of human behavior and the human mind. What appears on the surface to be an unlimited range of human potentiality seems to be underneath a mote attenuated range of possible behavior. Thus cultural and ethical relativity may well be applicable to the content of human behavior but not to the structure” (S: 229).

 

It can easily be seen now that structural understandings are actually an application of the basic understandings of organismic psychology. Both are concerned with wholeness, transformation, and self-regulation. Structures are the outgrowth of the natural organismic transactions, which are motivated by the very being of the organism. The fact that structures are always transforming and the organism is by nature self-motivating brings about the third point of the o-s-d theory: development.

Development–-A most important concept within the o-s-d theory in regard to development is that it is not purely maturational on the one hand nor is it merely a product of the environmental on the other. On the one extreme, maturation is the primary and sufficient cause of significant changes in the organism. The result is the understanding that the organism has a natural unfolding according to a predetermined blueprint that needs no other factor to bring about the change.

On the other extreme is found the environmental viewpoint adhered to by most behaviorists. Development is seen from this perspective as the organism acquiring the structure of the environment in which it operates. But the organism has no set of structures through which to see the world, and merely mirrors the environment that has molded it. This perspective would admit that the organism has basic biogenetic factors, but would hold that these play a minimal role in the life of the organism.

 

The o-s-d view of how the environment affects the organism is stated by Stewart:

 

 Environmental stimulation may be requited or important for evoking, eliciting, or supporting the behavior patterns that emerge, but the basic nature of the pattern was built into the system by the genes. Learning takes place as the result of action from the environment impinging on the organism, but the readiness, the effectiveness and the degree of learning will reflect the genetic patterning (S: 243).

 

The o-s-d understanding is that developmental changes are based on what Werner called the orthogenetic principle. He describes it:

 

Developmental psychology postulates one regulative principle of develop­ment; it is an orthogenetic principle which states that wherever development occurs it proceeds from a state of relative globality and lack of differentia­tion, articulation, and hierarchic integration (S: 246).

 

 To understand the significance of this principle it is helpful to divide it into its three components and examine each: differentiation, articulation, and hierarchic integration.

Differentiation is the ability to move from a world of ‘blooming, buzzing confusion” to a world that increasingly separates the objects of perception. This can be seen in every area of development, where the organism increasingly separates itself from other, understanding more and more the influences of its en­vironment, or increasingly distinguishes its emotional responses from those of “global excitement of the neonate into fear, anger, joy and eventually other dis­crete emotional responses” (S: 247).

Articulation symbolizes the movement from

the diffuse to the articulated. At first cells, actions, perceptions, cognitions and other elements of biology and behavior are general, uncoordi­nated, and lack organization. As ontogenesis progresses these elements become articulated and manifest coordination, interdependence, and organization (5: 247).

 

 Stewart explains hierarchical integration as:

 

…the gradual subordination of parts to wholes and the qualitative trans­formations whereby elements of systems move to higher levels in a new and more integrated form. The syncretic and unarticulated thoughts of the young child become not only differentiated and articulated but organized into a system that is capable of superior understanding. Coordination and cooperation become possible where only independent and egocentric behavior persisted. The capabilities and behaviors of the old stage become more complex and powerful as a result of the new integrations at the higher stage. Primarily hierarchical integration refers to the fact that the structures of the earlier stage are not lost, destroyed, or replaced but are transformed into more complex, more mature, and more effective structures at the higher stage (S: 248).

 

This structure is not a new structure, but is a transformed one, capable of adapting to the demands put upon it by a variegated environment. 

Development itself is a very complex and important concept of the o-s-d approach. In order to understand it better, it is helpful to make several distinctions in its relationship to other concepts. The first concept is that of change. The distinction is stated by Maier:

 

Development must be differentiated from change. Change implies a transition from one state to another while development focuses upon the dynamic, one—directional elements of change. Development, therefore, is a process; change is a product. The former takes place within systems which are defined by their structures and their inherent dynamic processes (S: 250).

 

The importance of this distinction is that development is unidirectional and pro­gresses from a “global undifferentiated state to the differentiated, hierarchically integrated state” (S: 250-251). But changes can occur within the structure of perception without changing the structure itself. These changes can be situations in which lower forms of coping strategies are used by the organism, but these changes do not affect the structural perception of the individual.

A distinction between growth and development is also helpful for understanding the o-s-d approach. Growth is seen as being quantitative change while development refers to being qualitative change. It is helpful here to pull in a previous distinction already given, that of content and structure. For the o-s-d theory, growth has to do mainly with content, where the organism acquires quantitatively new skills (such as scripture memorization, or vocational abilities). But development has to do with changes in structure, qualitatively. “The importance of this distinction becomes evident when it is realized that growth is reversible while development is not” (S: 253).

The distinction that must be made between learning and development is important in its basic assumptions. If a theory equates learning with development, then what is crested is an organism that is totally dependent on the environment for its definition. But as already noted, the o-s-d theory sees the organism as actively involved in the process of constructing knowledge. The human is not a tabula rasa upon which the environment writes its meaning, but is always actively transacting with the environment to develop an understanding that becomes progressively more adequate.

Piaget states:

To present an adequate notion of learning one first must explain how the subject manages to construct and invent, not merely how he repeats and copies . . . . Remember also that each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely. This obviously does not mean the teacher should not devise experimental situations to facilitate the pupil’s invention (S: 255-256).

 

This understanding of learning has strong implications for educational ministry and for the entire program of the church. Although this will be covered later, it should be noticed here that this theory sees the learner “as an active constructor and the teacher as an organizer-mentor ‘stimulating initiative and research.’ This requires that the teacher know not only his own subject matter but also know the ‘development of the child’s or adolescent’s mind’” (S: 256).

 

The relationship of learning to development is stated by Stewart;

 

From the developmentalist’s point of view, then, learning and development are not identical. Learning is dependent on development and requires the active involvement of the learner in the learning process, which in turn stimulates, supports, and augments the construction of knowledge required for development to occur and progress. Before specific learning can take place the learner must already have appropriate cognitive structures that will permit the assimilation of the events and encourage any necessary accommodation. The learner cannot, therefore, merely learn by association or reinforcement. A child can appear to learn because he or she has acquired specific verbal responses as the result of operant conditioning. But this is an automatic mechanical reaction involving the acquisition of content without understanding or the ability to apply the knowledge in new and varied situations significantly different from the contingencies used to elicit the responses (S: 257).

 

The implications of this understanding for the educational concerns of the church are enormous. Much subject matter with which the church deals is abstract and difficult to understand. The relationship with God is a prime example. Although a child’s affective responses are like that of adults, the child’s cognitive structures are not. The child can experience love, friendship, security, and acceptance, but when asked about a concept of God, a child will only repeat verbal statements that are part of a mechanistic, sound reproducing response. These “acquired responses” can inhibit, and stifle development if a relationship is imagined to exist merely because the individual uses the correct words. The emphasis needs to be on ex­periences that are accommodated to the cognitive structural level of the individual.  Only this accommodation will allow the maximum development to occur.

Stewart gives nine distinct categories that will be helpful in understanding the implications of development discussed so far. They indicate that development will be:

 

1.   Orderly

2.   Unidirectional

3.   Irreversible

4.   Qualitative