Remnant Review
I assume that you are a member of something. There is some group, movement, or special-interest group that you identify with, and in terms of which you define your life.
On the assumption that you want to see this movement extend its influence in history, you would be wise to consider the following project.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Any movement that cannot trace its past is highly unlikely to shape the future. Only in the extremely rare situations in which a movement appears almost out of nowhere, and then gains a large following, is this rule on the inheritance of the past not valid. Marxism is such a movement. It can be dated with the meeting of Marx and Engels in 1843, a meeting arranged by the now-forgotten figure, Moses Hess. Also, religious movements have often come into existence this way: a remarkable person comes from out of nowhere, gathers a following, and builds a movement. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, is such a figure. Nevertheless, once the movement is up and running, then it has to be able to trace its unique history if it is to extend its influence through generations.
With the new technologies of instruction, especially videos, education has begun to change. The pioneer here is Salman Khan. What he did almost single-handedly had never been done before. He does not seem to be ideologically motivated. He does not seem to have an agenda. He started teaching mathematics on YouTube to his nieces and nephews, and the world began watching the videos. It is unlikely that anybody is going to replace the Khan Academy until some new technological development comes along that enables interaction between students and teachers. My guess is that the Khan Academy is most likely to be the innovator here, not the also-ran. It now has the money and the technicians to develop such an educational breakthrough.
Each movement needs to have its own historiographical materials. Why? Because members of the movement should view their participation as part of an historical process. They would have to understand that the movement has a future. If the movement has no future, it is not going to gain adherents.
It needs at least the following.
1. TEXTBOOKS. Any movement that does not have a college-level textbook on the history of its development has a gaping hole in its program. It is not sufficient to have only one textbook. There need to be four.
The first pair must be these: (1) an introductory one for newcomers and high school students, and (2) the equivalent of an undergraduate college textbook. This would mean a book in the range of 800 pages. This would be a history of the movement itself, with some discussion of the impact that the movement has had on the general society.
The second pair would be supplemental to the detailed history textbooks of the movement itself. These must be conventional histories of each nation in which the movement is operating. This pair of textbooks, one for college and one for high school, would give the story of the nation, but from the perspective of the tribulations, goals, and efforts of the movement.
The high school textbook would have to qualify the student to pass an AP or CLEP exam. It would cover the basics. In addition, it would have a particular slant. It would present the development of the country, but also include the extent that the movement had an effect on some aspect of the country.
This is how to train self-conscious members of the movement, nation by nation. Members of the movement should know about the history of the movement, but they should also know about the impact of the movement in the history of their countries. They should have some idea of how the movement got started, why it got started, and what difference it has made historically.
2. VIDEOS. Once the textbooks are written, it is time for articulate, media-savvy people to re-format these textbook materials in video form. Any movement that does not have an extensive body of video materials to train its members is way behind the curve. This means virtually all movements today.
The technologies of digital communications are moving forward rapidly, but the leadership of the organizations is lacking. The leaders grew up before the World Wide Web, YouTube, podcasting, and WordPress. They do not yet understand the importance of digital technologies in penetrating the general population.
The video materials have to be backed up by at least textbook materials that provide inquiring people with sufficient information to get a sense of what the movement is about, what impact it has had, what its vision of the future is, and why it is worth committing to.
A VISION OF VICTORY
An organization without a positive eschatology is unlikely to put together this kind of a program.
If the organization's leadership does not believe that it has a significant possibility of influencing the direction of the future, then it is unlikely that the leadership is willing to commit money to locating the people who could do the historical research, writing, and presentations online necessary to mobilize the troops. Any organization that believes it is going to fail is going to find it difficult to mobilize the troops to do much of anything except sit on the sidelines and wait for disaster. If everything is going to hell in a handbasket, your best strategy is to find a comfortable seat in the handbasket.
Every organization has to deal with day-to-day problems. The tyranny of the urgent is a tyranny indeed. But an organization that can only deal with the tyranny of the urgent is not going anywhere in particular. If it is not going anywhere in particular, then where it has come from is irrelevant.
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
What astounds me is that no American denomination has such an integrated program. There is no denominational equivalent of the Khan Academy.
Any denomination that does not possess the intellectual firepower and the financial resources to put together a program like this is surrendering the future to organizations that do have the intellectual firepower and the resources.
The Catholic Church is so big, so old, and so well endowed, that it could do this.
Let me tell you one reason why it hasn't been done. Any Catholic University could put together a free K-12 online program that would qualify anyone who has gone through the program to enter the university. But, at that point, the university would face a dilemma. It could do exactly the same thing for its entire curriculum. It could put the entire curriculum online for free. It could then offer a bachelor's degree program for about $10,000, total. All of a sudden, no parents in their right minds would spend $30,000+ a year to send a child to that university. It is not in the self-interest of any Catholic University to do this.
The same goes for large Protestant denominations and their educational institutions.
The cost of putting together the textbook materials would probably be in the range of $350,000. The denomination's hierarchy would have to pay a historian teaching either at the seminary level or at the college level to write the main textbooks over a period of four years. I am assuming that there is already a course like this at the college of the seminary. If there is no course like this, then the organization is so completely lacking in vision that it can be easily dismissed. If the church were large enough to hire three or four historians, then the total project might be $500,000.
These days, typesetting a textbook is not expensive. Publishing it is not that expensive. The technology of book development is much more efficient than it was two decades ago.
There would be a ready market for the high school textbook and the college textbook within the denomination. If the denomination has no day schools, it should certainly start a homeschool program. I put together the Ron Paul Curriculum in three years. The denomination should be able to match this without much trouble. It would not take much upfront money, since the teachers could be paid a royalty for their courses. If the denomination wanted to make the curriculum free of charge to anybody, then it would have to put up the money to hire the course instructors. If there are 40 180-lesson courses at $25,000 per course, that is $1 million. This would be for a K-12 curriculum. Why the denominations don't have these online curriculum programs available today is a mystery. It is a lack of vision.
If the movement does not have the intellectual firepower or the money to produce the materials I have discussed, then it is either a fledgling movement or else it is treading water.
The remarkable fact is this: the technologies required to produce a comprehensive educational program like this are universally available today. The costs are just going to get cheaper. What is lacking is the vision at the top. What also may be lacking is the intellectual firepower of the classroom teachers in the organization. If this is missing, then the organization is going to spend its time on the fringes of national life.
In every organization there are factions. The first faction to get its textbooks and online materials available to the public is going to become the dominant faction in the organization. The visionaries who are the dynamos within any faction would be wise to give careful consideration to what I have written here.
CONCLUSION
If you don't know the history of the movement to which you have committed, you really are flying blind. If there is no such history, then the movement is flying blind. I suggest that you begin an investigation of the existing materials that provide the history of the movement. While you're doing this, find out what the vision of the founders were way back when. See if the movement today bears any resemblance to the vision of the founders way back when.
If you are part of a movement that does not have any of these materials, I suggest that you find out why not. Is it a lack of vision at the top? Is the movement really devoid of intellectual firepower? If there is the intellectual firepower available, then there is probably some rich businessman or rich widow who would be willing to put up the money for the sake of the next generation. It is easy to raise money for educational projects that enable an organization or movement to train recruits, beginning in the teenage years, to extend the movements organizational program. If there is no program to train the next generation, then the movement is not going anywhere.
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