Re-Educating the Broken Image

The brokenness of our image runs deep within our blood. What once was such a glorious state, now we are in a depraved state. We can never do anything without our brokenness creeps in. Everything in us is affected by our depravity. Our mind, our heart, our action, all are dirty of sins. Given this fact, we are doomed. Humans are in the state of hopelessness. Nobody can save us. We work very hard day and night to get ourselves out of the pit, but we got deeper into it. We turn to our possession, but our richness can’t save us either. We turn to our loved ones, but yet they are powerless. Our parents too don’t have much authority to move us from hopelessness to glory. We force ourselves to believe that science can save us, but science brings us despair more than what we already have. We thought that by connecting ourselves to the world of the spirits, the spirits can grant us power to be holy. We know that they can’t. Our world does not become better, but instead it becomes worse. We see more disasters every day. We hear more crimes committed every second. We understand that teaching the new generation to be good has become more difficult. We realize that the successive generation continues to be more rebellious than the previous one. From age to age we repeat our sinful tendency with much more intensity. Even the amoral and immoral cannot deny this fact.

A few decades ago Karl Marx thought that by reorganizing the society through the ideal of communism, the world would become much much better. But history has proven that communism becomes the most conducive vehicle for corruption, not only in wealth, but also in power, and eventually in justice and morality. The West attacked the idea of communism vehemently and proclaimed that democracy is the answer for every problem in society. Once again history proves humans that the West is wrong. Democracy brings a disaster greater than any natural disaster in the world. The economic crisis that hits the entire world is because democracy fails to administer justice and balance. The corrupt tendency in human nature finds its way to manipulate any system humans can ever devise. Even the destruction of the natural world that we experience at the moment is also the result of the failure of democracy. Don’t we remember that a long time ago, when the world was only populated by 2 persons, Adam and Eve, democracy was chosen and yet failed? The choice was based on the people, but the result was disastrous to all humanity. We can never shake off the result of the first democracy, eternal death.

Understanding our state of brokenness is extremely important. Some people try very hard to deny that we are broken. They think that humans are basically and intrinsically good. They believe in it 100% that they are willing to even stake their necks for it. A quality of the belief that is to be applauded but yet the aim of the belief is terrifying. They call education as the sole medium to fix the problem of the world, but since God is not in their equation, they have to rely heavily on their belief that humans are not broken. Education yet has failed us once again. After thousands of years of much education humans do not grow mature, we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. All education has failed. Humans continue to be the source of all the problems in the world. We need to understand that humans are the wildest being on earth. Over the ages wild animals have been tamed, but no one can tame human beings. Educating animals is easy, for their need is only physical. Educating humans is never easy, for humans are very complicated. When we toss away the truth about our brokenness, we miss a very important point. When our education is built upon such assumption, then our education also misses a very important point. No wonder that our education fails miserably. All educators cannot but agree to the failure of education.

Ah yes, religion might be able to fix all the problems. So we turn our eyes to religion. We teach our children under our religious belief hoping that our children will be like angels. Again we are shocked by the fact that many of those that we think to be very religious are among the most wicked people on earth. In the name of God people march to war, remember the crusade war? In the name of God people kill their brothers and sisters, remember the civil war? In the name of God people bomb their fellow human beings, haven’t you seen it on your newspaper and TV lately? In the name of God people abuse the weaker gender, do I have to remind you of this? The bottom line is people misuse the name of God for their own selfish and corrupted desire. They think they can get away with manipulating God. They are wrong! Judgment day is coming when those who think they do something for God will be shown their real motives. Religion? What religion? Religion fails even more miserably than any other in making the world better.

Immanuel Kant asked: “What can I hope for?” Looking at our world today, learning from our history, we know that the answer to Kant’s question is: “Nothing!” The world is going down. Our world is cursed, the same curse that God mentioned: “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Our world is dying, because Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s judgment stands, no one can reverse it. That’s why we see our loved ones fall one by one. They die helplessly. In our modern medical age, we cannot even save people from the simple flu. A small parasite can kill even the fittest human. We will surely die! And the entire world follows its prince, humans. The thing is, when we ignore God, we can never have hope. For hope comes from God himself. Hope belongs to God. Only if God offers it to humans then we can have it. Without God’s intervention, humans will surely walk to the grave without hope.

Re-educating the broken image is extremely difficult. Especially when the broken image thinks that he/she is not broken. The broken image must be reeducated of their status. Therefore our education cannot focus merely on the scientific knowledge. For without knowing who we are, our spectacular scientific knowledge is valueless. A Russian cosmonaut went to the moon, and with his scientific knowledge he claimed that there is no God for he could not find him in the moon. The scientific knowledge deceives him. Perhaps he needed to paddle his space shuttle to the sun instead of the moon if he wanted to meet God. As Christian educators, we make it our business to reeducate the broken image. We must not deny our brokenness, for we are what we are. But let me tell you this, we do have hope, and our hope is not an urban legend. Our hope is not a myth. Our hope is real for it rests secure in God’s own mighty hands. Would you believe, is the real question. Would you believe that you are broken and that you need God desperately to get out of your hopelessness? Allow me open up a secret for you; this is a secret of heaven and earth: “Yes you should believe, for it is the truth. And the truth shall set you free!”

* The Business of Christian Education X