Follow After Ministries

The second in a three-part series on Christian education.[1] As I am a pastor by training and an educator by hobby, I am certain my reflections will be limited and misguided. I invite correction by those with greater wisdom and experience. Please comment below.

Today we set out to answer a challenging question: Can a Christian school ever be as good educationally as a secular school? I would suggest two possible answers—both true, paradoxically.

No.

The harsh reality is that a Christian school can never do what a secular school does, precisely because a Christian school attempts to do so much more. In addition to a regular course load, Christian schools add Bible classes and chapel, filling up an already full schedule. But an additional class would be easy to accommodate, truthfully, though the students may have less flexibility in choosing electives. The real trouble comes with everything else. Beyond classes, Christian schools provide one-on-one and small-group disciple-making relationships and various ministry opportunities, including service, outreach, and missions. They also encourage the spiritual disciplines, ideally training students in the value and practice of Bible reading and study, prayer, journaling, silence and solitude, and other time-consuming activities. And, in contrast to many secular schools, they do all this while expecting active family and church involvement. We would never want to (though I imagine we frequently do) impede connection in these vital communities of faith. In light of this, we would be fools indeed if we think we could compete with the more single-minded approach of secular schools. We have more to do than our secular counterparts, and because we recognize the eternal value of the activities competing for precious time, we willingly take a backseat when some conflicts arise. There is not enough time to do everything well, no matter what lies the world (and our own idolatry) feeds us, and so we ruthlessly prioritize. We cannot be what public schools are. We will never match the academic level of schools committed to a single, worldly, idolatrous end. Or so it would seem at first glance.

Yes.

In another sense, of course, a truly Christian school—recognizing that many schools that call themselves Christian are just wealthy, private college preparatory academies with a glossy Christian veneer—should be able to provide the very best education, even if it cannot keep up academically with its secular cousins. For only Christian schools consciously recognize and submit to biblical truth, thus providing students with a fuller understanding of life and the world into which they will shortly depart. Secular schools cling to and breed a faulty humanism that is ultimately unlivable. They may churn out academic overachievers, but they do not produce genuine humans by and large. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, NIV). How much do secular schools attempt apart from the Giver of life? Think for a moment. Can the secular transform the eternal? Can those who worship the world and its puny gods (i.e., success, career, money, power, even human knowledge) bring life to dry bones? produce the fruit of the Spirit in depraved hearts? see salvation come to any house? Because secular schools do not make disciples, they do little to provide the essential training for life—the abundant life that Jesus alone offers (cf. John 10:10). There is more to life than what we learn in school textbooks. Christian schools better understand the limits of formal education.[2] Should it come as any surprise that the Greek word for “disciple,” mathetes, signifies “pupil”? How could it be otherwise? True education requires following in the footsteps of a worthy Master, not memorizing facts or mastering concepts. At their best, Christian schools recognize and pursue academic instruction within the broader framework of discipleship, preparing students to glorify God vocationally in this life and eternally in the next. No secular school can accomplish that.

The first in a three-part series on Christian education.[1] As I am a pastor by training and an educator by hobby, I am certain my reflections will be limited and misguided. I invite correction by those with greater wisdom and experience. Please comment below.

“Teachers, don’t you care if we drown . . . in a sea of humanism?” (cf. Mark 4:38).

Much of modern education is self-avowedly steeped in liberal humanism. In America, since the time of Horace Mann and John Dewey, public education has been a conscious tool of indoctrinating the unsuspecting masses in American, capitalist, egalitarian, progressive thinking.[2] In this regard it has been remarkably successful. The aims are humanistic, viz., to become productive workers (or what we sometimes call “earning a living”) and to produce responsible members of a liberal society. And the means are humanistic, as we would expect from those who deny biblical anthropology, such as total depravity and even the notion of sin. Unabashed (and ultimately fruitless) behaviorism, uncritical acceptance of technology, the emphasis on merely human effort, and democratic egalitarianism are all examples of this.

The question, though, is whether or not this thinking has seeped into much modern Christian education too. Undoubtedly the answer will vary from school to school. Yet I suspect that frequently it has. We adopt the framework of this liberal-humanistic project, and then integrate a Christian worldview into it. In its best sense, of course, biblical integration means that the whole worldview, and its ensuing activity, is thoroughly biblical, informing and directing all that we do. In practice, biblical integration often means using the standards, practices, philosophy of secular humanists—and then sprinkling a smattering of verses and activities to redeem the process for the sake of Christ. We have done little more than shave her hair and cut her fingernails; at heart she remains thoroughly pagan (cf. Deuteronomy 21:11-13).

I would suggest a different approach. Biblical integration assumes a (liberal-humanistic) educational framework into which one inserts biblical thinking. What is needed instead is educational integration: starting with a biblical framework (cf. Proverbs 1:7) and then inserting the best of modern educational practice and philosophy. To paraphrase a friend and colleague who put it better than I: we need to turn our paradigm and communal praxis upside down and seek to redeem educational theories by subjecting them to biblical critique and wrestling them into submission under the lordship of Christ within the Scripture-formed community. In other words, we need educational integration, not biblical fragmentation.

The challenge of any reorienting (disorienting?) theory is praxis. To what extent do we abandon the “traditional” model and adopt a wholly new, radical approach? I am not sure I have the answers. Few things are less helpful than suggesting a paradigm shift (without a clutch) and then refusing to offer practical steps to take. And yet I fear I must leave this task to better, wiser educators. Until then, may God take every thought captive to the obedience of the Teacher (2 Corinthians 10:5).