What were your two most boring subjects at school? For many of us these were R.E. (*) and grammar. For you too?

Did you know that theology has much in common with grammar, especially when it comes to the teaching thereof?

As the idea of good grammar is to open up the human faculties to a language, so is the idea of good theology to reveal the ways of God.

And just as the bad teaching of grammar shuts down the understanding, so the bad teaching of theology closes the door to the divine.

To some degree this explains my empathy as an English teacher for Jesus’ outrage over the Pharisees: the very ones who should have been showing the way, were blocking the way.

Teachers have a lot to answer for.

(*) Religious Education

 Photo: Garden path, Northumberland, U.K.