Disruptive Inclusion: why and how Christian adult learning is for everyone
Unpacking the themes of her new book Disruptive Inclusion, Jen Smith argues that we need to embrace disruption in Christian adult learning.
This is why in learning Christ, one does not simply take
on board an orthodoxy of received belief. One becomes a
pilgrim on a way. He is the true and living way, and he is
always before us, disrupting our present equilibrium, and
calling us through the pain and transition into the maturity
which is our Christian calling.
John Hull, What Prevents Christian Adults from Learning?, p.195
When I first read Professor John Hull’s 1985 classic, What Prevents Christian Adults from Learning?, I discovered a different way of understanding the relationship between Christian faith and learning. Rather than assuming that Christian learning was based in what is learned (curriculum content) or perhaps who provides the teaching (educator position/ character), Hull’s central interest was in exploring exactly how Christian adult learning happens, asking not only what it means for Christian adults to learn about Christ, but learn from Christ and in partnership with Christ.
From my experience in schools, adult learning settings and churches, I was aware that many Christian adults most closely associated learning with fear and pain due to poor experiences in formal education environments. For so many, learning was to be avoided, or at the very least, left to other people and so, faith and learning had become necessarily detached. Christianity was about comfort and clarity, not ambiguity and tension. In his attempt to suggest an alternative to this, Hull suggested that Christian adult learning does not only happen in formal, classroom settings but everyday life is filled with learning opportunities. Nor is learning limited to the academically gifted nor defined by the ability to recall high quantities of complex information. Rather, for Hull, the pivotal mechanism of learning was connection – connection with God, self, others and wider creation. Specifically, he argued that learning happens when Christian adults dare to embrace unexpected, challenging and ultimately disruptive circumstances.
Disruptive Inclusion re-frames and re-imagines Hull’s ideas about Christian adult learning for a new generation of learners and educators. What if, rather than attempting to avoid, downplay or resolve tension as quickly as possible, Christian adult learning is about lingering well in places of crossover and confusion? What if, rather than aiming to escape to security and clarity, we focus on getting better at living in the in-between places? Disruptive Inclusion uses terms from Hull’s life and work to explore how we might move beyond current trends in the understanding and practice of Christian adult learning to richer and more effective approaches. How can learners find and better navigate optimum distance? Experience multiplicity of vision? And function as trans-world interpreters?
Based on an understanding of learning as connection, Disruptive Inclusion goes beyond a discussion of abstract ideas to the deeply personal and practical. First, Disruptive Inclusion is presented as conversationally as possible. It presents detailed conversations with the biblical narrative, Christian tradition and liturgy, the Church and my own experiences. By offering my contributions to the conversation, my hope is that you will be inspired to join in and add your own. Second, as an educator and lifelong learner, Disruptive Inclusion is never far from the ‘so what?’. Embracing disruption in learning may look great on paper, but what about the messy reality of life? What about for neurodiverse learners? What about the challenge of measuring a and articulating progress? What about preaching? What about AI and online learning? I address these and other practical questions throughout.
Ultimately, however, Disruptive Inclusion not only offers alternative responses to the what, how, where and when questions of Christian adult learning, it offers a crucial and potentially game-changing answer to the underlying why? Why should the process of Christian adult learning be defined in terms of connectivity in and with disruptive circumstances? As with almost everything related to Disruptive Inclusion, the answer is simultaneously simple and complex: it provides a genuine opportunity to re-shape the learning landscape (wherever and however it happens). What if the best learners among us are not necessarily those with the best exam results or those who attended the most prestigious academic institutions, but those who are best acquainted with disruption? What if the kinds of learners our systems are designed to reject are exactly those with the skills and abilities we so deeply need?
Disruptive Inclusion helps to explain my developing understanding and experiences where learning and following Jesus meet and offers an invitation for you to explore similar intersections in your own life and faith. Disruptive Inclusion is a call to richer and more joined up thinking, conversation and practice in Christian adult learning both within and beyond the Church, and a reminder that its implications extend way beyond the classroom.
Disruptive Inclusion is available to pre-order now via our website.
Jen Smith is a tutor at the Queen’s Foundation Birmingham. She has a Masters in Biblical Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena California and a PhD in Theology from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Her doctoral research focused on Christian adult learning methodology and she is passionate about facilitating conversation about what it means to teach and learn both in the church and other theological educational settings.