In the United States, young people are bombarded with messages that they must go to college in order to secure their place in the middle class. Those who are most disadvantaged in society are the most frequent recipients of this rhetoric because people believe that education is the one ticket that can save them from poverty. Like the belief that there is only one avenue for salvation from hell to heaven, the notion of salvific education presents a single answer to the problem of inequality--if you want to be saved from poverty and oppression, you must go to college. In this book, Hannah Adams Ingram interrogates the presumed promise of education and argues that the myth itself perpetuates, rather than alleviates, social inequality. The Myth of the Saving Power of Education asks educators to reclaim the liberative potential of education and asks Christians to repent of judging individual worth based on the same merits as the secular market system.
“Practical theologian Hannah Adams Ingram offers here a brief
but dense and highly provocative analysis of America’s
mythological/ideological understanding of education, with a modest
but liberative set of proposed alternatives. She shows from
historical research that the project of education in the United
States historically has been dominated by white Christian
redemptive projects that still amount to salvation by making
everyone conform to white middle-class norms. Ingram gently but
firmly proposes a better way forward, for Christians, educators,
and America. Highly recommended!”
—David P. Gushee, professor, Mercer University, and past president,
American Academy of Religion and Society of Christian Ethics
“By tracing the intertwined development of public education in the
United States with white supremacist Christian theologies of
salvation and missional uplift, Adams Ingram provides powerful
insight into the dangers of unexamined belief in the power of
education for individual or communal economic salvation. Seeking a
truly liberative role for education and a more comprehensive policy
response to economic oppression, her prophetic call is incisive,
impassioned, and disruptive in all the best ways.”
—Katherine Turpin, professor, Iliff School of Theology
“What is the future of education? What values will be taught? Can
we rely on public education to help children succeed? Do we need to
create faith-based schools? Drawing on cultural studies,
educational policy, and theology, Hannah Adams Ingram enriches the
conversation. For people of faith, she offers directions for
enhancing the support structures for education and contributing to
human flourishing.”
—Jack L. Seymour, professor emeritus, Garrett-Evangelical
Theological Seminary
“Practical theologian Hannah Adams Ingram offers here a brief
but dense and highly provocative analysis of America’s
mythological/ideological understanding of education, with a modest
but liberative set of proposed alternatives. She shows from
historical research that the project of education in the United
States historically has been dominated by white Christian
redemptive projects that still amount to salvation by making
everyone conform to white middle-class norms. Ingram gently but
firmly proposes a better way forward, for Christians, educators,
and America. Highly recommended!”
—David P. Gushee, professor, Mercer University, and past president,
American Academy of Religion and Society of Christian Ethics
“By tracing the intertwined development of public education in the
United States with white supremacist Christian theologies of
salvation and missional uplift, Adams Ingram provides powerful
insight into the dangers of unexamined belief in the power of
education for individual or communal economic salvation. Seeking a
truly liberative role for education and a more comprehensive policy
response to economic oppression, her prophetic call is incisive,
impassioned, and disruptive in all the best ways.”
—Katherine Turpin, professor, Iliff School of Theology
“What is the future of education? What values will be taught? Can
we rely on public education to help children succeed? Do we need to
create faith-based schools? Drawing on cultural studies,
educational policy, and theology, Hannah Adams Ingram enriches the
conversation. For people of faith, she offers directions for
enhancing the support structures for education and contributing to
human flourishing.”
—Jack L. Seymour, professor emeritus, Garrett-Evangelical
Theological Seminary
Hannah Adams Ingram is Director of Religious Life and Chaplain
at Franklin College. She is also an ordained minister in the United
Church of Christ.