Month: July 2012

Why Christian Education? (Part 3): Three More Objections to Christian Schools

July 27, 2012 / Trent / 0 Comments

There are a few other objections to Christian education that I wanted to address directly. The first is that Christian schools shelter children from the real world. The second is that the Bible calls us to be salt and light to the world, and by sending children to a Christian school, we are, in effect, hiding our light under a bushel. And third, Christian education is too expensive.

Christian schools shelter students from the “real” world.

This is an objection that comes from the assumption that all Christian schools are as Niebuhr’s Christ against Culture stance. Hopefully, the awareness of the other two has taken care of this objection, but I will offer one more word.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Do Christian Schools needlessly shelter students from the *real world*? #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools” quote=”Do Christian Schools needlessly shelter students from the *real world*?”]

First of all, it is not even possible to shelter students from sin. Sin lives in the Christian school when the first person unlocks the door in the morning. So we have to deal with idolatry and selfishness and gossip and bullying and theft just like every school does. The difference in the Christian school is that it brings the Word of God to every situation in the lives of the children. We don’t just “explore, evaluate, and experience” sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, but “all of life under God.”

The selection of teaching materials and library books, etc. is not based on the protection of our students from the evil in the world, although age appropriateness is one of the criteria. These resources are selected for their usefulness to explore as well as discern the world. We don’t shy away from issues around sexuality, violence, justice, nor do we avoid non-Christian thinkers and authors, filmmakers, or artists.

In Christian schools, we hold up culture to the light of faith. To do this, we have to engage culture. Our work is not characterized by isolation, but inoculation.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”In Christian schools, we hold up culture to the light of faith. To do this, we have to engage culture. Our work is not characterized by isolation, but inoculation. #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools” quote=”In Christian schools, we hold up culture to the light of faith. To do this, we have to engage culture. Our work is not characterized by isolation, but inoculation. “]

Christians are called to be salt and light

A second objection to Christian education is that Christians are called to be salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-16), and by sending our children to a public school we are fulfilling this mandate.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Is the mandate to be salt and light in the world and argument for or against Christian Schools? #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools” quote=”Is the mandate to be salt and light in the world and argument for or against Christian Schools? “]

I agree that Christians ought to “let [their] light shine before men,” but this injunction is meant for Christians, not the children of Christians. I would also suggest that even if a child is a Christian, to be salt and light requires some wisdom and spiritual maturity.

Further, the command to be salt and light in the world is not just an injunction for the individual Christian. Christ gives us a metaphor; we are to be a light, “like a city on a hill.” A city is a community–we are to set up communities of faith that will be salt and light in the world.

North Americans, including North American Christians, are tremendously individualistic. We tacitly interpret our world through an individualistic lens. We naturally read the “salt and light” injunction individualistically. This is one of the very idols that a good Christian education attempts to reveal and combat. The Christian school is salt and light in the world as a community.

We have something to share regarding teaching practices, employee relations, special education and learning assistance, recycling, bullying, assessment, supervision of teachers and students, etc. We have something to share because what we believe about Jesus Christ is true, not just for Christians, but for everyone and everything. So, we collectively witness to all those involved in education.

Christian School staff are involved in many professional groups relating to their specific field within education. Our schools are also visited frequently by teachers and principals, special education and learning assistance teachers and coordinators, coaches, counselors, government inspectors, and elected officials. Further, our students are involved in their communities. We are being salt and light in the broader community, as a community.

I am not saying that Christian teachers ought to be teaching only in Christian schools, as a matter of fact, this is a vital place where the light of the gospel needs to be reflected. I also want to be clear that I am not saying that sending one’s children to the public school is the wrong thing to do. I have heard many stories of Christian children being a blessing in their local schools. What I do want to claim is that the salt and light argument ought not to be understood as a Biblical injunction to send Christian children to a public school.

CHRISTAN SCHOOLS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE

A third objection is that Christian Education is too expensive. I agree that it is expensive—especially where the schools receive no government grants and the full cost falls to parents. In general, though, I would say that there are many things we can do without, or delay, that are less important than an education that reinforces a transformational and integrative view of life.

I see this in our school community. For many, the family summer vacation is camping at the local provincial/state park. The cars that drop off the kids at school in the morning are often older than 10 years. It helps that Christian education is a community project in that the older generations continue to support the school which helps keep costs down. Also, local church congregations and the school itself may have programs available to help cover the costs of tuition for those who can’t afford it.

I wouldn’t be honest if I said that any school executes this model of Christian Education perfectly because it’s very difficult and we suffer from all those human limitations. Also, it’s hard to discern the degree to which our collective view of the world is acculturated; it’s easier to swim with the cultural current than against it, and to constantly evaluate every part of life through the interpretive lens of the Gospel is hard work.

There are many things to talk about – How we celebrate the graduation of our students in a way that reflects Christ’s Lordship? How do we create meaningful interaction between students of different ages and between students and older generations? We also need to continually talk about technology, which is always changing. There are many more.

It is most effective, and most fun, when we engage in the process of discerning and shaping our culture in a community, that includes students. I also find it a tremendous blessing to work with others that have a clear focus—to be faithful, discerning, obedient and creative servants of God and of neighbour, and stewards of His creation.

Why Christian Education? (Part 2) A Philosophical Objection to Christian Schools

July 26, 2012 / Trent / 2 Comments

Photo by Marcus Cramer on Unsplash

Several years ago, my pastor and I had a long discussion regarding Christian Education. He felt that for Christian parents to send their children to a Christian school was dualist. Dualist in the sense that the things of Christ are considered separate from the things of life—a sacred/secular dualism. My response to this was that the sort of Christian school that I worked at was founded on the premise that that one can’t separate Christ from the rest of life. He may have been equating Christian schools in general with the sort that arises out of what Niebuhr called Christ against Culture stance [see Why Christian Education? (Part 1)]. This view is certainly dualist for its advocates see a separation between the things of this world and the spiritual world ruled by God. My school, and others like it, expresses a rejection of the sacred/secular dualism.

In this part, I would like to address this objection to Christian schools.

Are Christian Schools Dualistic?

To my pastor, I argued that if he wanted to avoid dualism, he ought to be hesitant about sending his children to the local public school which operates under the same dualistic philosophy as the Christ against Culture model, albeit from the other side. My contention is that the ideas of modernism are still deeply rooted in our culture and foundational to modernism is the separation of the religious from the secular. The Christ against Culture schools separate the two for the sake of the religious, and public schools isolate the secular.

Many aspects of North American culture are still largely under the influence of modernism. In a recent installment of the CBC program Ideas (“After Atheism, Part 3”) producer David Cayley says,

“To be modern is to divide the world up into two realms, a public, secular sphere in which things are judged rationally according to agreed standards of evidence and argument, and a private religious sphere in which irrational opinion and existential decision hold sway.”

Religion was seen as the “source of oppression, obscurantism, and unending war, until the state tamed this unruly power and put it in its place.” This idea, says Cayley, “is in many ways the founding myth of modern society.”

Not surprisingly, this modern view of religion is apparent in our modern institutions. In the United States, the idea of the separation between church and state has come to mean exactly this. In Canada, the courts have determined that the “freedom of religion” guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, means that citizens have the right to follow their own religious beliefs, but it does not only mean freedom OF religion, but also freedom FROM religion. In order to satisfy both, religion is relegated to the private sphere.

Canadian courts have also said that the Charter applies to school boards. Schools recognize the importance of religion in providing a moral and spiritual framework for life so religion can be taught, but must be done so in a neutral and academic fashion.

Two Problems with Public/Private Dualism

There are two problems with the separation of public secularism and private faith.

The First Problem: Neutrality is not Possible

The first is that neutrality is not possible. A neutral stance toward religion is not a neutral stance. In that the preferment of neutrality is a way of looking at reality in general and all other religions in particular; it is, in essence, a religious claim. To claim that we ought to exclude the religious voice from public discourse is implicitly religious for it is based on a set of beliefs about the world and the human beings’ place in it.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”The idea of a non-religious school is a myth. The question is not whether or not one should send one’s child to a religious school; the question is, to which religious school will one send them? #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools” quote=”The idea of a non-religious school is a myth. The question is not whether or not one should send one’s child to a religious school; the question is, to which religious school will one send them? “]

The Second Problem: Private convictions can’t be left at the door

The second problem with relegating religion to the private sphere is that religion can’t be private. It is impossible for anyone to enter the public sphere and leave their convictions at the door. This is true of every belief, including those of secularism.

Christianity certainly cannot be relegated to the private sphere. Paul says this of Christ in Colossians 15-17.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together

I like how Abraham Kuyper puts it. In his inaugural address at the dedication of the Free University, he said,

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

C. S. Lewis echoes this idea:

“There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan.”

My pastor friend was resistant to the dualism inherent in the Christ against Culture type of Christian school because it limits the Lordship of Christ to only a narrow slice of life. But I think that it is equally problematic for those who believe in the universal sovereignty of Christ to send their children to a school which insists Christ’s authority is to be confined to the private realm. Both are based on false dichotomies: public/private, culture/Christ, physical/spiritual, reason/faith, to name a few.

Christianity, at its core, is an orientation of one’s entire life toward a person—the Son of God and Redeemer of all that is. Every other belief is subordinate to this Truth. Our culture, however, asks us to subordinate this Truth to the truth claims made by a secular religion–that this idea is merely a private belief. I do not hold this against its proponents, for every religion subordinates the beliefs of every other religion to its truth claims. It’s just that the devotees of this modern secular religion insist that their beliefs aren’t religious.

This is why I am a passionate supporter of Christian Education for all Christian families.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”No education is neutral and all education is religious. For Christian families, the education their children receive in school ought to be one that places Christ at the center. #ChristianEducation” quote=”No education is neutral and all education is religious. For Christian families, the education their children receive in school ought to be one that places Christ at the center.”]

There are three more objections to Christian Education. Read about them here.

Why Christian Education? (Part 1): Three Different Types of Christian Schools

July 15, 2012 / Trent / 1 Comment

Photo by Daniel Watson on Unsplash

I was at a church service some months back and a guest pastor was, in essence, exhorting the congregation to get out of their Christian ghetto and do some good for the world. He has a point, of course. It’s easy to live in the suburbs and surround ourselves with other Christians who indulge in the same flavour of the faith that we do.

I agreed with the guest pastor completely until he suggested that this meant getting children out of Christian schools. I was taken aback when some in the audience responded with applause and cheering. Maybe I am a little sensitive, but I thought I heard some vindication in their applause.

As someone who has dedicated over 30 years to the furthering of Christian education, I was saddened as I drove home, first, because there seems to be a passionate opposition to Christian education in at least part of the congregation, but more so, because the minister’s comments were based on a complete misunderstanding of Christian Education as I experience it every day.

Many sincere Christian parents send their children to the local public school. This may be because there is no local Christian school, or because of financial constraints. These can be difficult barriers.

There are other reasons given for the renunciation of Christian Education. There are some, like the guest pastor, that believe the children of Christian parents are to be salt and light in the world. Other more philosophical types have told me that they wish to avoid a sacred/secular dualism. Against these positions, I would like to push back and assert that the school that best addresses these concerns is the Christian school. I don’t mean just any Christian school, however. There are different kinds and I’m not ready to defend all of them with equal fervor.

There are many reasons parents send their children to a Christian school and behind these reasons is often a particular view of culture and the Christian’s relationship to it. The various views of the relationship between Christ and culture will produce different types of Christian schools. In his book Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebuhr describes several Christian responses to culture. These responses are useful for distinguishing different types of schools.

Different Types of Christan Schools

Christ Against Culture

One group of Christian school advocates sees an antithetical relationship between the culture and those who proclaim Jesus as Lord. Niebuhr calls this stance, Christ against Culture. Adherents of this view believe that to be loyal to Christ one must reject culture.

Niebuhr identifies several problems with this stance. The first is that separation from the world isn’t really possible. Secondly, this view seems to presuppose that sin lies in culture and that by avoiding culture, one can avoid sin. A final problem is that, at its root, the Christ against Culture model seems to suggest that Christ has little or nothing to do with culture—that the material world of which culture is a part, is at odds with the spiritual world, ruled by God.

It is not difficult to understand why adherents of this view of culture would seek a separate Christian education for their children. The public school, like culture as a whole, would be seen to contain much that is in opposition to the ways of God. The purpose of the Christian school, then, would be to further the separation of the Christian community from the culture as a whole.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Some Christian schools pull out of culture which they see as evil. This stance overemphasizes the fall and fails to see the creational goodness in culture. #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools” quote=”Some Christian schools pull out of culture which they see as evil. This stance overemphasizes the fall and fails to see the creational goodness in culture. “]

Christ with Culture, Christ of culture, or Christ Above Culture

Not all Christians frame the relationship between Christ and culture as an either/or proposition. Many see much good in culture that may, or even ought to, be embraced. Some of these views can give rise to the second type of Christian school. In these schools, because of a positive attitude toward culture, there is little reason for the curriculum to be much different than that of the local public school.

It is a Christian school because various devotional practices have been added to the schedule. These would be things like devotions at the beginning the day, weekly chapels involving corporate worship, religious instruction and prayer, and Bible or religious education classes. We might think of the Christian aspects of this sort of school as the creamy icing spread over the already pretty decent cake that is the standard curriculum taught in the public school.

This view of the relationship between Christ and culture is perhaps at the root of many sincere Christian parents sending their children to a public school. What the child learns at school may be considered as, at worst, philosophically neutral and the religious instruction and devotional activities that occur in the home and at church are considered adequate for the spiritual nurturing of the child.

Where the first anti-culture view underemphasizes the good in creation, the critique of this pro-culture view is that it under-emphasizes the extent to which sin has distorted God’s good creation—including culture. The failure to appreciate the extent of sin’s corrupting effects often results in a corresponding failure to appreciate the scope of Christ’s redemption.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Some Christian schools maintain an open stance toward culture which they see as neutral. This stance overemphasizes the creational goodness and fails to appreciate the effects of the Fall in culture. #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools” quote=”Some Christian schools maintain an open stance toward culture which they see as neutral. This stance overemphasizes the creational goodness and fails to appreciate the effects of the Fall in culture.”]

Christ Transforming Culture

There is a third type of Christian school, one that is unlike the Christ against Culture model in that it has a far more hopeful view of culture. It is unlike the second in that it places greater emphasis on the depth and breadth of the effects of sin. The view of culture from which this school arises is what Niebuhr calls the Christ transforming Culture model.

Adherents of this third type of Christian school recognize three fundamental truths. First, that culture is a manifestation of God’s good creation and a product of human creativity and community. Second, that sin distorts every part of this good creation, including human culture. Thus, there is nothing created, that was not created good, but there is nothing that has not been distorted by the Fall. A third truth is that Christ is the redeemer of all that God created. This process began with his death and resurrection, and continues, even now, by the work of his Spirit in and through his people.

The task of the Christian, then, is to explore what it means to live faithfully. This means that we strive to shape God’s world by enhancing and celebrating the creational goodness and also discerning the presence of sin and working to reduce its effects. The role of the Christian, then, is to take care of the environment, feed the hungry and take care of the sick. It also means to be involved in culture as movie-makers, lawyers, florists, plumbers and union leaders that bless our neighbours. It means being available if God chooses to work through our meager efforts and transform our local communities, or even the world.

The work of Redemption is Christ’s, but we are invited to participate in it. Rikk Watts of Regent College in Vancouver once left me with this analogy: We are called to imitate Jesus, like a child who enthusiastically pushes his plastic lawnmower behind his dad when he’s mowing the lawn. “Look Mom! We’re mowing the lawn!”

What kind of Christian School arises from this worldview? It would not disengage from culture for that would be a failure to recognize the essential goodness of the creation found in it, but neither would it indiscriminately embrace the culture, for to do so is a failure to appreciate the distorting effects of sin that is present in all aspects of life. This Christian school would explore all aspects of creation, including culture, and celebrate the creational goodness that we find there, but it would also train students to discern evil, not just “out there”—where it certainly is, but also inside our most intimate circles and within ourselves.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Not all Christian schools are the same. Some exist to escape the evils of the world. Others simply add a Christian veneer to a *neutral* curriculum. Others accept Christ as Lord of all aspects of school life. #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools” quote=”Not all Christian schools are the same. Some exist to escape the evils of the world. Others simply add a Christian veneer to a *neutral* curriculum. Still others accept Christ as Lord of all aspects of school life. “]

Holistic Christian Education

It’s not just daily devotions, weekly chapels and Bible classes that make a Christian school. Neither is the Christian content in the curriculum the full picture. All aspects of the school fall under the Lordship of Christ: our understanding and use of technology, our approach to learning assistance and special education, the way discipline is carried out, how budgets are finalized and decisions about the programs we offer.

Human experience in this world cannot simply be divided up between good and evil where we, as Hamlet says, “Throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer with the other half.” Nor can we live as if Christ is something we can add to the surface of culture like icing on a cake. Rather, Christ’s Lordship is at the core of every aspect of life—and this would include the way we educate our children.

Rather than isolating children, as the guest pastor supposed, a Christian education is about preparing students to meaningfully engage the world with a full understanding of the gospel.

Read: Why Christian Education? (Part 2): Three Objections to Christian School

Celebrating Diversity?

July 1, 2012 / Trent / 2 Comments

I was settling down to watch the 2012 Euro Cup final and a McDonald’s commercial came on. Have you seen this one? Watch video

It is clearly exploiting the international flavor of the football tournament. An American hipster approaches an exotically attired man on the street of some faraway land and says, “Excuse me.” The response of the addressed indicates that no communication is possible for, being exotic, the man speaks no English. The commercial cuts to various international locales and a variety of characters –old and young, male and female, rich and poor—being asked a question in English, but none can help the hipster.

Then the American ask a new question, “McDonald’s?” We begin to see a comprehension that transcends mere words. The music swells as the barriers of language fall and the joy of a more profound commonality is celebrated. These people from all over the world understand and point with beaming faces in the direction of the malapropos site – the common experience of humanity, it seems, is the McDonald’s experience.

This ad shows us, in very positive terms, the variety found in the world’s cultures. But at its root, the philosophy of McDonald’s undermines difference.

In the 1960s, McDonald’s told us that we could eat the same hamburger anywhere in the United States. This is just one key to McDonalds’ success, however. What is truly remarkable is that they were able to convince us that sameness was a good thing. We have been so thoroughly convinced of the necessity culinary uniformity that we will pass by unique and far better-tasting hamburgers in order to buy one more of the billions and billions of inexpensive and identical sandwiches.

One of the things I most love about Europe is that you can walk past two bakeries within a few blocks of one another and enjoy a different lunch. What both meals share is quality: the bread is fresh, the cheese is local and the pig that is in the sausage was raised on a nearby farm and not in pork a factory a thousand miles away. This variety is in the same block and there are innumerable blocks in innumerable towns all across Europe.

The new McDonald’s commercial celebrates the diversity in our world, yet, the corporation intends to do to the world what it’s done to America—indeed, it is doing it right now. I’d like to think that it won’t succeed—that maybe one of the differences between our culture and the rest is that they don’t value efficiency and monotony over artistry and uniqueness. Sadly, I don’t think this is true.

If you agree with McDonald’s that cultural diversity is something to celebrate, then take the next step and oppose McDonald’s cultural homogenization strategy–instead cultural diversity by never eating at McDonald’s again.