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The Philosophy of Christian Education With Some Observations Germane to the Teaching of High School English (Part 1 of 5)
Part I: The Purpose of a Christian Education
In His infallible Word, God has specifically ordained that the education of children is the heart of the Gospel. The committed Christian readily agrees that education, like all other aspects of life, is religious in nature because its purpose is "to school persons in the ultimate values of a culture" (R.J. Rushdoony. Qtd. in Wayne Rogers 21). Simply put, the purpose of a Christian education is to teach children "to know God and keep His commandments" (Chris Strevel 13). It has been pointed out that this fundamental goal can be divided into three primary objectives: Christian education transmits to a child (1) a mind that thinks in Christian terms about all aspects of life, (2) a heart that seeks to live the Christian life, and (3) a covenantal vision that purposes to disciple the nations for Christ (Robert Lester 6-7; Strevel 14).
A glance at Christian scholarship reinforces the importance of the first objective, which is fundamental to all true learning. When the seventeenth century Puritan John Milton outlined his "best and noblest way of education," he declared that "The end. . .of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him" (394, 389). T.S. Eliot asserts that "a Christian education primarily trains men to think in Christian categories" (103). However, according to Harry Blamires, a student of C.S. Lewis, Western culture has lost its grasp of a thoroughly Christian mind. Blamires laments the secularization of the modern mind. He notes that our worship is Christian, our morality is Christian, but "there is no public pool of discourse fed by Christianly committed thought on the world we live in" (13). Thus it is vital for Christian educators in a secular world, where Christianity is relegated to private life, to train students to think like Christians. A summary of Blamires's ideas reveals that this kind of training results in young people who believe God controls all things, who understand the difference between good and evil, who submit to God-ordained authority, who acknowledge a truth based on both special and general revelation, who minister to others, and who know that all things exist for the glory of God.
Just as important as a Christian mind is a Christian world and life view that permeates all of society. Students must bear the fruit of the Christian life. John Bolt points out that the youngest students need to know that the world is divided into two kingdoms, which Augustine called civitas Dei (the kingdom of God) and civitas mundi (the kingdom of this world). It is essential that they are trained to maintain the antithesis in order to be worthy citizens of the kingdom of God. Says Bolt, "It is not enough that they know doctrine: they must live it" (142-43 ). And young people must have a covenantal orientation by accepting their role in redemptive history. If these three objectives are fulfilled, the Christian school will transmit a Christian world and life view to future generations (Lester 8).
Another theologian reminds us that an intimate knowledge of God's covenant with man is central to the issue of children's education. The Christian student must be taught his covenant relationship with his Creator. First, the child must acknowledge that, because the first Adam broke covenant with God, he is a sinner under God's curse. Second, the child must understand his need to repent and turn from sin. Third, he must understand that Jesus, the Second Adam, became his substitute, bearing the punishment his sins deserve and purchasing his redemption on the Cross. Finally, the child must strive to obey God as His child bought with Jesus' precious blood (Wayne Rogers 21-22). Rogers places Christian education in its covenantal context: "education is for the purpose of covenant 'continuity.' That is, we must educate our children, our posterity, in the fact of the covenant, the demands of the covenant, and our goal is that the covenant relationship will be maintained and perpetuated for generations to come, thus increasing, enjoying, and multiplying the blessings of God" (22). It is crucial to recognize that "Christian education is inseparable from the covenant of grace, and it must always be carried on in this context. . . . Christian education in the home, church, and school teaches the child of God how to function as a Christian in God's world" (Strevel 13). We train the Christian child not primarily so that he can get a good job and be wealthy; we train him to see himself as part of God's covenant community (Strevel 15).
An indispensable distinctive of Christian education is that it is inextricably bound up with the truth. "All truth is God's truth" (Frank Gaebelein 28) because all truth first resides in the mind of God. Therefore, every aspect of education must be based on the revealed truths found in God's Word. This fact is revelatory in nature: "God revealed Himself in nature and God also revealed Himself in the mind of man. Thus it is impossible for the mind of man to function except in an atmosphere of revelation" (Cornelius Van Til. Qtd. in Strevel 13). In the Middle Ages, men well understood that outside of God, there is no truth, but by the seventeenth century, Rene Descartes, labeled the father of modern thought, concluded that the only knowable truth was his ability to think - cogito, ergo sum. Descartes' belief in this one certainty had a devastating impact upon civilization because it ushered in a radical autonomy, which eventually led to the postmodern rejection of objective truth and its concomitant fragmentation of society. Cultural adherence to relativity poses a daunting threat to education. In the 1980's, Allan Bloom opened his trenchant critique of American education with this ironic assertion: "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative" (25). Throughout our land, graduating seniors have been indoctrinated by humanists for twelve years, so that their minds are closed to knowing the truth. The Christian understands that the ungodly cannot truly know anything, because in order to comprehend any fact, one must submit his intellect to the inerrant Word, and only to the degree that an individual conform to God's Word will his understanding of the truth be increased.
The study of literature allows for obvious and continual integration of Christian truth. The literature teacher's ultimate paradigm is the Bible, the Book of life and morality and truth. The Christian teacher teaches all literature with the corrective lens of God's Word, so that his students are trained to respond biblically to the claims a book makes upon them and to assess everything that they read from a specifically Christian perspective. Referring to a Christian's response to literature, T.S. Eliot stated that "Literary criticism should be from a definite ethical and theological standpoint, and what I believe to be incumbent upon all Christians is the duty of maintaining consciously certain standards and criteria of criticism over and above those applied by the rest of the world and that by these criteria and standards everything that we read must be tested" (97). Leland Ryken suggests that literature gives us "windows to the world" because it provides a lens through which we look at the collected experience of man (24). Ryken's work is invaluable to the literature student because it is based on God's truth. For instance, Ryken notes that the prestigious literary critic Matthew Arnold replaced Christianity with literature as man's only solace; Ryken condemns this idolatrous attitude and shares with C.S. Lewis the view that "the salvation of a single soul is more important than the production and preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world" (Qtd. in Ryken 33-34).
NOTES
Wayne Rogers. "Education and Covenantal Continuity." The Counsel of Chalcedon. November 1991. 21-23.
Chris Strevel. "What Sort of Christian Education Will Build a Truly Christian Culture?" The Counsel of Chalcedon. April/May 1999. 12-20.
Robert Lester. "Educational Philosphy, Goals, and Emphasis of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States." The Counsel of Chalcedon. June/July 1999. 18-21.
John Milton. "Of Education." Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry. Alexander M. Witherspoon and Frank J. Warnke, Eds. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.
T.S. Eliot. "Religion and Literature." Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. 97-106.
Harry Blamires. The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 1978.
John Bolt. The Christian Story and the Christian School. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Schools International, 1993.
Frank E. Gaebelein. The Pattern of God's Truth: The Integration of Faith and Learning. Winona Like, IN: BMH Books, 1968.
Alan Bloom. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students. New York: Simon and Schuster, 19876.
Leland Ryken. Windows to the World: Literature in Christian Perspective. Dallas, TX: Probe Books, 1990.
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