We often focus on education as preparation for a job or for a career, but if that is all education is about, we lose the opportunity for education to not only help us be employed, but to also help us more fully and responsibly participate in the work of making beloved community a reality in our world.

Education for beloved community must be more about the cultivation of wisdom rather than merely accumulating knowledge and information. It is not that we do not need information or knowledge, but we also need the cultivation of character and responsibility, and that ultimately is more important than solely focusing on preparation for employment.

The most important function of education is to help us come to know ourselves more fully as members of a beloved community so that we might contribute to its fulfillment. Education in its many forms can help us think clearly, critically, and creatively as we come to know how we can use our freedom in just, responsible, and sustainable ways. It is no accident that the most flourishing democracies in the world have the best education systems in the world.

Education must avoid becoming propaganda. The goal of propaganda is to persuade people regardless of what the truth may be. Propaganda is running rampant in our post-truth society. Education should focus on seeking the truth and cultivating wisdom, not simply persuading for the sake of persuasion. Education should help us be able to recognize the misinformation and disinformation that is so often present in the propaganda that is permeating our society. Seeking what is true is important, even if it makes us uncomfortable or does not agree with our worldview or political preferences.

We also need education to help us address the great and urgent challenges we are facing in the world today rather than ignoring them. Ultimately, education does not do us much good unless it is helping us survive as a species in ways that are just, peaceful, and sustainable. This is why the cultivation of wisdom rather than the mere accumulation of information is so important.

It is important to note that education alone will not save us. Nazi Germany was one of the most educated countries in the world, and in my academic discipline, Martin Heidegger was one of the most educated and famous philosophers in the world, but he also became a Nazi. Love must be at the heart of education in order for it to lead to wisdom. Otherwise, more knowledge and information might actually make us more effective at perpetrating evil in the world rather than good.

I would also suggest that education for beloved community requires separation of church and state. Any time public education is used to promote one religion over others, it violates our religious freedom and runs the risk of creating religious discrimination and prejudice within our communities.

Even though church and state should be separate in public education, there is a role for religious education to play in addressing the fierce urgency of now when it comes to our pressing global challenges. The progressive Christian author Brian McLaren notes the urgent need for religious education to contribute to solving our shared problems in his most recent book, Life After Doom, in which he writes:

“Part of me wants to grab every pope, bishop, denominational executive, pastor, and seminary professor by the lapels and start yelling, ‘What the frack are you doing? Arguing about theological trivialities while the world burns? Worrying about preserving organ music and quaint architecture as the sixth mass extinction is unfolding? Why aren’t you reorganizing everything, rewriting every liturgy, restructuring every hierarchy, and revolutionizing all your priorities so that you can re-mobilize all your resources to help save our precious, fragile planet? Aren’t you supposed to be in the saving business? Don’t you see? Without a healthy planet, there will be no healthy people, and certainly no healthy congregations, denominations, religions … or organ music!’”

McLaren, Brian D.. Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart (p. 18). St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Education, in its many forms, public and private, religious and non-religious, formal and informal, can help us learn more effectively how to work through our societal challenges and our political differences in non-violent ways. When we come to more fully know ourselves, it helps us to have more empathy and understanding in relation to other persons. Education can also help us learn from history to see how problematic the use of violence is in our political life.

In relation to this Saturday’s experience of political violence, I have been seeing some really disturbing and dangerous the comments from across the political spectrum. The political violence of this past weekend was a realization of one of my worst fears during this election cycle for our very flawed and flailing democracy. When we get to the point of such polarization, vitriol, hate, and fear in our politics and live in a society with easy and almost unlimited access to weapons designed to kill as many persons as possible; it makes our society extremely vulnerable to political violence.

In the days ahead we will see some very unhelpful responses to the violence that occurred. We can’t control how others respond to what happened, but I urge us all to avoid conspiracy theories and attempts to gain political points off of what happened. Political violence of any kind is not the way to beloved community. Let us not add any more fuel for more violence in what is already a very fragile and dangerous time for our country.

Hopefully, education can help us move beyond this post-truth moment in our society that has contributed so much to the hatred, hostility, and fear that are so prevalent today and enable us all to understand that a sincere desire and search for the truth and wisdom is important. It also can help us cultivate a shared sense of our common reality and a better understanding of the underlying reality that is contributing to the urgent problems and challenges we are facing. May we all be engaged in lifelong learning so that we may fully use our freedom in responsible ways as we all work together for a more just and beloved community. May it be so.