From shema to shomea Tracing a theology of listening as a foundation for Christian value education among the digital generation

Abstract

Generation Z and Generation Alpha are formed within a digital ecosystem that structurally trains distraction rather than listening, a crisis addressed far more often through psychology or technology criticism than through theology. Scholarship in Christian religious education (PAK) in Indonesia typically invokes Scripture as a general source of values rather than excavating it philologically as a theological locus in its own right. This article constructs a text-grounded theology of listening by tracing the Hebrew root shama from the Shema Yisrael command (Deu. 6:4–9) to Solomon's request for a lev shomea, “a hearing heart” (1 Kgs 3:9), asking how this theology is constructed and how it can be transformed into a pedagogical framework for Christian value education among Generation Z and Alpha. Using a library-based, exegetical-intertextual method, the study analyzes six canonical texts sharing the shama root or its conceptual resonance through a text–theme–value–indicator procedure. The study finds a coherent, obedience-oriented theology of listening, translated into four educational virtues—patience, relational humility, discernment, and responsive obedience—and four correspondingly designed pedagogical practices that directly counteract digital distraction.