Month: October 2013

Objections to Christian Education

October 28, 2013 / Trent / 6 Comments

My principal told me of a conversation that he had with a Christian minister who was strongly against Christian Education. I asked him if he could send me a list of his objections.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Here are 7 Objections to Christian Schools and a brief response to each. #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools #ChristianorPublicSchool” quote=”Here are 7 Objections to Christian Schools and a brief response to each.”]

1. Children need to be salt and light in the public school.

The first 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. I agree that it is vital that Christians “let [their] light shine before men,” but this injunction is meant for Christians, not the children of Christians. I’m not saying that children of Christians aren’t Christian (although some would), but I am suggesting caution. To be salt and light requires the supernatural strength provided by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Children of Christians are often well mannered, respectful, kind and encouraging. A lot of children are, Christian or not, if have been raised in stable and principled homes. Being polite and encouraging is not the same thing as being salt and light. Children of Christians are not necessarily equipped for this task for it requires more wisdom and spiritual maturity than a child usually possesses.

We always take the injunction to be salt and light to be a command for individuals. This is, how we understand everything, but the biblical default is set to community. Jesus’ metaphor was to be like a “city on a hill.” To be salt and light, then, is a command to create communities that spread the light. A Christian school is this sort of community. Our light is showing how education ought to be done in our particular time and place if Jesus Christ were truly Lord of all things.

2. Where will the world be if all Christians pulled out of the world

Behind this objection is the assumption that Christians are to function (as “salt and light”) in culture only as individuals. This mistake is understandable, since we are incredibly individualistic in our culture. This is one of the very idols that a good Christian education attempts to reveal and combat. We tacitly interpret our world through an individualistic lens. There is no doubt that the world would be in bad shape if there were no Christians, but Christian schools do not cause Christians to disappear. They are still there. They are just in schools that proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life. The Christian school is salt and light in the world, but it is a corporate response, rather than an individual one. Christian school must, then, be very deliberate in engaging culture–their local community as well as the education community–so as to truly be a blessing to “the world.”

3. Children who attend Christian schools experience culture shock when they enter ‘real world’

This is a great danger if the purpose of the Christian school is to protect students from the “real world.” Some religious schools exist for this very reason, because they overemphasize the power of sin in the world. Other schools are only Christian in that they have morning prayer, weekly chapels and offer Bible classes. The problem with these schools is they overestimate the created goodness in the world. There is a third type of Christian school that believes all things are created good, and all things profoundly affected by sin. 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. A child educated in this kind of school would not be shocked, but would be prepared to faithful living in the world.

4. Science, English, Math… its all the same whatever school you go to… the religion part can come from home and church.

This objection comes straight out of the Modern worldview. Modernism separates reality into public/private categories. The public sphere is where reason guides political, economic, educational, (etc.) discussions. The assumption is that reason is neutral, and out of this value neutral position, we can dialogue on how we can best organize society. All the non-rational, things, like beliefs, opinions, religion, etc. are relegated to the private sphere. Society works if these things are kept in the church, the mosque or the bedroom. The public school is such a place. Reason directs the curriculum and, in the absence of beliefs, it is value neutral.

Many Christian parents also accept the neutrality of reason and, therefore, of a public education. The church and the home need add the religion component and the overall experience of the child tips toward the religious. The problem is that the public sphere is not neutral at all. Modern rationalism is a belief system that stands in opposition to the teachings of the Bible. C. S. Lewis puts it this way:

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

5. Christian schools inoculate youth to authentic Christian living and foster indifference to the beauty of the Gospel.

This is a danger whenever the gospel is merely an abstraction. If the church and family do not embody the gospel, the child will probably become desensitized to the “beauty of the Gospel” as well. At school it isn’t enough to study truth and then leave it in the students head. A Christian school needs to help student blur the lines between knowing and doing, and not just in extracurricular activities, like “missions trips.” And not just within the lessons themselves. The embodiment of the gospel needs to be systemic involveing, course offerings, programs, assessement, discipline, Special Education and Learning Assistance, athletics, awards, councelling, etc.

But the road along which we travel is fraught with perils on all sides. There are significant dangers in sending Christian children to the public school as well. One of them is probably not the desensitization to the Gospel by constant exposure to it. The dangers to which children of Christians are exposed in a public school are pretty serious. The idea that Science, English, Math, etc. are neutral is one pretty big one.

I think a better approach is, rather than risking these far greater dangers, addressing the “desensitization” issue of Christian schools very deliberately and ask how we can, individually and collectively, embody the Gospel.

6. My Christian school experienced was meaningless for growth for me as a Christian

Perhaps this is true. Of course I can’t possibly say. Perhaps his Christian school experience has no bearing on the fact that today he is a pastor. But there is some pretty good evidence that Christian education in general has a long term effect on the future of its graduates. The Cardus Institute published a study on Christian Schooling in both the United States and Canada. In the Executive Summary of the Canadian report, it is reported that

graduates of evangelical Protestant schools not only show more commitment to and involvement in religious rituals and activities compared with their government school counterparts with similar religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, but, despite having been educated among peers from similar religious backgrounds, are likely to be just as involved in civic affairs as all public school graduates, with the exception of protests.

7. The best thing for us is to have our kids going to school with their neighbours, and to put the onus for children’s discipleship back on the church.

My response to this objection is mathematical. In a seven day period a child spends at least 35 hours at school. The church cannot possibly compete, and it is a competition if we are talking about the public school. Even with the most incredible curriculum and leaders, how much can the church do in its few hours a week? If, however, the church and the school worked together in the discipleship of the children, how much more effective would we both be. I teach at a Christian high school, and the youth group leaders of the local churches are regularly at the school interacting with students and coordinating with administrators and teachers to discuss how to better serve the children, their families and our Lord.

At the Christian School, young people are meaningfully interacting with Christian adults. As they work on cars in the mechanics shop, or delving into Shakespeare, or practicing basketball students are being discipled in faithful living and their character is being developed through authentic relationships with Christian staff. The Christian school is not in competition with the church; the church, family and school work together in nurturing of children.

Christian schools aren’t all the same. My response to each of these objections is from a particular approach to Christian Education. For a more detailed description of the three types of Christian schools, read :

Why Christian Education? — Part 1 and Why Christian Education? — Part 2

Legalize Hit Men?

October 24, 2013 / Trent / 8 Comments

crystal710 / Pixabay

I observed an English class at my school reading the recent post by Betsy Childs entitled “Why We Should Legalize Murder for Hire.”

Some were horrified at first at the suggestion that “hit men [could] provide a valuable service to society” by helping women deal with “unwanted marriages,” but they quickly understood they were dealing with satire. Their appreciation of the author’s wit was evidenced by the readers’ giggles and parenthetic comments.

Students see that the author is building a parallel between killing one’s spouse and killing one’s unborn child.

The students commended the cleverness of Childs’ analogy when she says that “matrimony severely curtails a woman’s freedom” and that “the better course is to avoid unwanted marriage in the first place,” and “it is her marriage; only she can decide when it must end” . . .

One student pointed out that Childs correlates adoption to divorce when she says the latter “may be an attractive alternative to murder” but “some woman do not have the emotional and financial resources to go through a divorce.”

The students’ initial reaction to this article was positive.

Critical Thinking and Discernment

Teacher: How would you take this if you were pro-choice?

Student: I’d be mad.

It wasn’t very long and one student used the word “fallacy.”

The students continued to ask each other questions:

Stacked evidence?

Not quite.

Faulty analogy?

Yeah, that fits.

(Faulty analogy: an argument is based on misleading, superficial, or implausible comparisons.)

The students suggested that this argument is only effective if someone accepts that premise that a fetus was comparable to a husband. Someone who is pro-choice would not accept the premise. They concluded that if your audience was pro-life, Childs’ argument was effective, but if it was pro-choice the argument would be ineffective.

Who is the audience?

Since this article was posted on The Gospel Coalition website, one can assume that the audience was conservative to moderate Christians. The effect of the article was to reinforce the views of the audience. In other words, it was preaching to the choir.

What’s the point of writing this if your audience already agrees?

It was observed that the only effect of the article was to reinforce the view of those who agree that our society “celebrates [the murder of] family members”. Several students pointed out that this, in itself, is not wrong, but because the tone was mocking this article would simultaneously alienate opponents and inflame the passions of supporters.

Was this the purpose of the article?

Students wondered, if you get the two sides all riled up you can’t get anywhere.

How can Christians write about this issue that promotes dialogue?

Doing the Dishes and the Gnashing of Teeth

October 21, 2013 / Trent / 3 Comments

chefkeem / Pixabay

When my kids were younger they had chores—one of which was doing the dishes.

It should have been as simple as everyone taking a turn on a rotating basis, but was never that simple.

Lacrosse games or ballet practices meant that somebody would miss their turn. To ask another child to take care of it resulted in anguished lamentations. These were even louder if the prospective dishwasher could conjure up a scenario where this debt might not be repaid. Then there was the was wailing and gnashing of teeth over the unfairness of having to do dishes on a night when we had a roast, as opposed the other night when a sibling had only to contend with the remains of a meal of bread and soup. Sometimes I got so sick of it that I just did them myself.

Grudging Obedience

I wouldn’t have been any happier if I had their silent obedience either. It certainly would have been quieter, and possibly less frustrating, but it wouldn’t have lead to their happiness, and in my better moments what I wish most for my children is fulfillment regardless of the circumstances.

The problem in both of these responses, wailing lamentations or grudging obedience, is that doing the dishes is seen as a duty. The idea of duty or obligation or requirement is set in opposition to happiness and joy. For my young children, happiness and joy could only be achieved by doing what they wanted as opposed to what they had to do. My kids put freedom first.

All this was a long time ago. My children have all grown up. The great thing now is that when they come over for a meal, they joyfully do the dishes. It’s the same activity, but their attitude is completely different.

What accounts for this difference? Surely, it’s maturity. They’ve lived away from home and know how much money and work it takes to put a delicious meal onto the table.

But it’s more than maturity; the most important thing for them is no longer freedom from duties and obligations, but a relationship with me, their parent. I cook for them a delicious meal because I love them and they wash the dishes because they love me.

If we think that Freedom is more important than anything else in order to live the good life (read more here), our focus will usually be hostilely directed toward those things which limit one’s freedom, and those who seemingly impose duties, obligations, responsibilities.

This creates resentful people.

If relationship is more important than freedom, our focus will be lovingly directed toward other persons who we love.

It’s obvious which leads to greater joy and happiness–fulfillment.

Biblical Basis of Fulfillment

It’s all there in Deteronomy 10. The writer implores God’s people to

¹² . . .walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.

Obedience certainly restricts our freedom, but washing the dishes after a good meal is a loving and joyful response to a great meal prepared for you in joy and love, and it’s all for our own good anyway.

My kids were miserable when they were focused on the duty and they are happy now that they are focused on the relationship. God wants what’s best for his people, and it turns out that is obedience.

Not Simply Obedience

But it’s not simply obedience.

Simple obedience is for the simply religious, and they are miserable. It’s joyful obedience that God is after and that will be a blessing to us. In verse 16 of the Deuteronomy 10, it says

Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.

Circumcision was a duty for the people of God and if they understood it only as an obligation, they’d be stiff-necked. God certainly didn’t want disobedience, but silent and grudging obedience wasn’t any better; he wanted their hearts so that we can flourish.

Human flourishing is not about freedom, nor is it about fulfilling religious obligations, it’s about relationship.

Made for Freedom?

October 12, 2013 / Trent / 2 Comments

Free-Photos / Pixabay

When I got married, I was no longer free. I couldn’t play League of Legends whenever I wanted. I couldn’t eat chicken wings in bed. I had to tell my wife that I was going down to the store to get a jug of milk.

But I don’t mind. Not at all.

I’m not sure why exactly. It’s not because I’ve somehow gained more than I’ve lost–it’s more like I’ve gained what I lost as well as gained what I’ve gained. It doesn’t really make sense but that’s the way it is.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think that this sort of counterintuitive accounting occurs when anyone is in a good relationship.

A. C. Grayling recently presented the first of eight “Fragile Freedoms” lectures on CBC’s Ideas. In it he said that there is no possibility of “living the good life” if one is not free.

Grayling, along with most other modernists, would be right if human beings were made for autonomy. But what if we weren’t primarily made to be free? What if we were made first for something else?

Made for Relationship?

What if we were made for relationship? Not just in marriage, but in friendship and family, and not just with people but with animals and even the physical world.

The Biblical story suggests human beings are made to be in relationship, first with their Creator and, after, with everything else. We were made to be the objects of God’s love. He says through Jeremiah, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (31:3). Suppose we were made to receive and the to return his love and to spread it out to the rest of the creation?

If this is the purpose for which we were made, freedom is still a very important part of who we are. Love is impossible without freedom. There is no possibility to love someone if there is no freedom to reject their love. It’s all there in Genesis 1-3. Humanity was created for relationship with God (and with each other and with the world). We had a choice and chose to reject God’s love. This didn’t change our purpose, just our ability to fulfill it.

So who is right about human nature? The modernists like Grayling or those who adhere to the Biblical view of man?

There is a simple test: Who experiences more fulfillment in life? The person whose freedom is expressed through relationships or the one whose relationship is subordinate to his freedom.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Who is more fulfilled? The person whose freedom is expressed through relationships or the one whose relationship is subordinate to his freedom.” quote=”Who is more fulfilled? The person whose freedom is expressed through relationships or the one whose relationship is subordinate to his freedom.”]

In my experience, freedom is best enjoyed in the context of relationships, even though you surrender it most of the time. I think this is a universal experience when we are talking about “good” relationships. Those who insist on freedom first will be able to eat chicken wings in bed, but they won’t have anyone who cares that they stepped out for a jug of milk.

Christian Modernism? Modern Christianism?

October 9, 2013 / Trent / 0 Comments

We just can’t escape the modern worldview. The term “worldview” is itself a product of the modern worldview.

The modern worldview sees the world in terms of clear boundaries between categories. Well, one of the most cherished categorical distinctions is between subject and object. Implicit in the term worldview is the division between the object, the world, and the subject, the viewer.

But it all evens out because a person who deliberately rejects the Christian worldview can’t escape it either.

Judeo-Christian Roots of Secular Modernism

Those who claim they have a secular-Modern worldview, don’t really. Their understanding of the world and themselves is unavoidably infused with the Judeo-Christian worldview out of which it grew.

The concept of “secular” is itself rooted in the Judeo-Christian past. A linear understanding of history, the importance of human rights and freedoms, are two tenets of Modernism that are basic to Judeo-Christianity. Science flourished in the west because the universe was understood to be ordered–“In the beginning was the Logos. Ordered means predictable and this is the basis of the scientific method.

These are just a few of many examples where the modern “secular” worldview is not truly secular.

Just as the secular worldview isn’t purely secular, the so-called “Christian worldview” of our day has been influenced by modern secular ideas.

The Influence of Modern Secularism on Western Christianity

First, there are many Christians that accept the modern reductionist understanding of “truth.” They are trapped within this syllogism: Truth is rational and empirical; The Bible is true; therefore, the Bible is rational and empirical. At a popular level, this idea leads to two common errors: that the Bible is true like an encyclopedia is true, or that it’s not true at all. Since this reductionist view of truth is so recent and so limited, it is neither appropriate nor useful to hold the Bible to this narrow understanding of truth.
Another way the modern worldview has infiltrated our churches is the valuing of reason over emotion. This is the one I need to own up to. I like the rational bits of the worship service–the sermon–far more than the more emotional components–the singing. And you notice that even by classifying the elements of the church service as emotional and rational I am being very modern.
Third, we have a tendency to be individualistic and we put more emphasis on the individual autonomy than in preceding centuries. We speak of having a “personal relationship with Jesus” and we sing songs like “I have decided to follow Jesus.” OK, we don’t sing that song anymore, but we sing a lot of songs that are essentially personal reflections. There is, obviously, an important personal or individual dimension to Christian faith, but modernism has lead us to put an unbalanced emphasis on the importance of the individual.
Modernism considers faith a private affair that ought to be kept out of the public arena. Some in the church find it handy to live within this false dichotomy. In these cases, one’s public life has nothing to do with one’s religious life. This makes it possible to not claim some income on your tax forms, or to underpay employees, or cheat customers, or pollute the environment, or fail to adequately tip servers in restaurants, etc. These behaviors do not really touch upon one’s conscience because “business is business.” In other words, the demands of the Bible are separated from one’s public activity.
A related dichotomy, equally false, divides the world into sacred and secular spheres. There are many examples of this kind of thinking. When I was a teenager, there was much debate as to whether or not Christian young people ought to listen to “secular” music. For many, it was clear that Christians ought not to do so, and no consideration was given to whether or not the “Christian” music was true, or even good. Some Christian schools are based on the sacred/secular dichotomy. The problem with the idea of the secular, as we understand it today, is it suggests there are areas of creation over which Jesus is not Lord. This idea is completely incompatible with scripture.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Five ways that the Modern Secular worldview has influenced Western Christianity #ModernFaith #Christianty” quote=”Five ways that the Modern Secular worldview has influenced Western Christianity”]

It is no easy thing, purging modernism from our minds and if we could ever completely succeed in doing so, we’d then have to purge our minds of post-modernism. I really don’t believe we can ever avoid being a product of our times. But reading the Bible helps a lot. It also helps a great deal to read history and non-western literature–the Bible nicely fits into these categories as well. These help us to provide a context for the idolatrous worldviews out of which we live.

The Story of Human Rights

October 2, 2013 / Trent / 0 Comments

dimitrisvetsikas1969 / Pixabay

While driving to one lecture, I was listening to another. The one I was listening to was delivered by A. C. Grayling on CBC’s Ideas. This was the first of eight “Fragile Freedoms” lectures held at the not yet officially opened Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg (listen here).

This is an excellent lecture. It’s clear, unified, thorough and entertaining, but in his historical survey of the development of the idea of rights, Grayling begins in the wrong place.

The Modern Story of Autonomy–Human Rights and Freedoms

His story beings in the 16th century. It goes like this:

In the Reformation, humanity took its first step toward the freedoms that culminated in the Enlightenment and were embodied in the documents of the French and American Revolutions. Martin Luther and the other reformers freed people from the hegemony of the church by giving them direct and individual access to God without the mediation of the church. This freedom Grayling calls “liberty of conscience” and it began an “inevitable “process leading to “liberty of thought” and then “liberty of action.” These liberties led to the freedom to ask all sort of questions, first, of the natural world, which led to the scientific revolution and then, of the social and political systems, which resulted in the revolutions in France and America.

Grayling is telling the Modern Story, the dominant story in our culture. It is a story of, among other things, the quest for individual human autonomy. This story begins in 1517.

The Ancient Origin of Human Rights and Freedoms

It is generally agreed upon that human freedoms and rights are a good thing. And we all like to take credit for good things. The Soviets claimed credit for the invention of the telephone, the Dutch for the sinking of the Spanish Armada and the Americans for the invention of basketball. So too, the Moderns claim credit for human rights and freedoms, and they do this by linking human rights to the modern quest for autonomy.

But the idea of human rights is not, in the first place, rooted in autonomy but rather in the idea of human worth. And this idea has a much more ancient origin.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Are human rights and freedoms rooted in autonomy or human value? #freedom #rightsandfreedoms ” quote=”Are human rights and freedoms rooted in autonomy or human value?”]

Genesis 1:27 says, “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” The Biblical story says that human beings–male and female–were created with inherent value.

It is likely we are not all that impressed at such a declaration. We have heard these words, literally, for millennia. (And this is sort of my point; we’ve heard them so long, we were bound to listen to them at some point.) But how would these words have sounded in the ancient world–ridiculous, preposterous?

Human Value? Absurd!

The cultures that dominated the ancient near east, Early Babylonian and Egyptian, revolved around a priest-king, who represented the gods and as such, needed to be treated like one.

This idea was reinforced in the creation myths where humanity was created for the soul purpose of serving the Gods. The myth upheld the socio-political reality of the culture–inferior people are meant to serve the superior representative of the divine.

Imagine the how scandalous the idea that mankind–both male AND FEMALE–itself was the image, read “replacement for the idol.” This idea was immediately reinforced in the next chapter (2:20) when we see Adam naming things, an activity carried out by the gods in the stories of other cultures.

The idea that human beings were not existentially equivalent to the muck on the god’s celestial shoes would have been unthinkable, yet it is this radical idea of human value that undergirds the entire Bible.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”The idea that human beings were not existentially equivalent to the muck on the god’s celestial shoes would have been unthinkable, yet it is this radical idea of human value that undergirds the entire Bible. #rightsandfreedoms, #freedom #humanvalue” quote=”The idea that human beings were not existentially equivalent to the muck on the god’s celestial shoes would have been unthinkable, yet it is this radical idea of human value that undergirds the entire Bible. “]

Jesus summarizes the law and the prophets, which amounts to pretty much the entire Old Testament, saying love God more than anything and “your neighbour as yourself.” Further, the central event in the Bible, Christians would say in human history, is the son of God giving up his life for the world and its people. And the reason consistently given for this sacrifice is God’s love for people.

Christians believe that a human being is the Lord of the entire universe.

This is a very high view of humanity, indeed.

And it is this understanding of humanity, which comes directly out of our Judeo-Christian heritage, which is the foundation of human rights. The events of the 16th century and following amount to a discovery of what faithful readers of scripture had been saying all along.

A. C. Grayling is telling the Modern Story, a story which is based and draws upon the Judeo-Christian worldview.

I hope that the new Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg will give more credit to the ultimate source of human rights as it strives to fulfill its worthy task “to explore the subject of human rights in order to enhance the publics understanding of human rights, and encourage reflection and dialogue.”