Those who are involved in the work of rebuilding Christian education in our culture are usually familiar with Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:4. He says in that place that fathers are to take care to bring up their children in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” This is taken vaguely by some as an exhortation to “be a Christian dad.” Others, rightly, see the words as more pointed than this, and assert that Paul is specifically requiring Christian education. I believe this is correct, but much more is involved than simply establishing the routine of Christian education. But first things first. In our day, we need to learn to see the big E on the eye chart right at the start. We may then proceed, in the latter part of this article, to squint at that troublesome line near the bottom.
The word for nurture is paideia, and Paul is requiring Christian fathers to provide their children with a “paideia of the Lord.” If we were to describe our process of education to a first century Ephesian, and then ask him what Greek word would be used to describe this process, the answer would be simple and straightforward — paideia. And this is not an obscure word or concept; the idea of paideia was central to the ancient classical mind, and Paul’s instruction here consequently had profound ramifications. To find a word of comparable importance to our culture, we would have to point to something like “democracy.”
This means that our verse could appropriately be rendered in a way that required Christian fathers to bring up their children in the “education of the Lord.” But we are not done. Far more is involved in this than taking the kids to school and church, or having an occasional time of devotions in the home, as important as such things are.
The word paideia goes far beyond the scope and sequence of what we might call formal education. In the ancient world, the paideia was all-encompassing, and meant the enculturation of the future citizen. He was enculturated when he was instructed in the classroom, but the process was also occurring when he walked along the streets of his city to and from school. It included the fact that he walked by the temple to the gods of his people. This also was part of the process.
If we bring this down into the present, and look at our current governmental secular paideia, we see that the classroom activities would certainly be included. The message of “tax-supported anything but Christianity” comes through loud and clear. But we also see, all over the country, other aspects of our modern paideia. For example, children, by the million, stand by the side the road, and then climb on to yellow school busses — or as the educrats might want to call them, “motorized attendance modules of distinctive coloration.” This common experience is also part of our secular paideia, and part of our process of enculturation. Because of it, I, who grew up in Maryland, have something in common with one who grew up in Oregon. We were also taught the same foolishness. So this process is occurring when secular dogmas are taught, and it is occurring in our practice of having first graders write on paper with the bark still in it.
This leads to the next issue. I would want to argue that it is not possible to fully provide “the paideia of the Lord” outside the context of a Christian civilization–Christendom. If this is the case, then Paul’s command to the Ephesians here, when they did not live in a Christian culture, just as we do not, means that he saw the establishment of a Christian culture and Christian education as interrelated. Culture is not possible apart from a paideia, and paideia (in the fullest sense) is not possible apart from an established culture. We have ourselves a chicken and egg problem. The fact that Paul commands fathers to begin a Christian process of enculturation means that he saw, with the eye of faith, the end result, which would have to be a Christian culture. Outside the context of a particular kind of culture, the word paideia makes no sense.
The theoretical problems associated with this are of course enormous. In our day, the idea of Christian culture is suspect, even among Christians, and many within the Church are advocating what they call “principled pluralism.” And even among those who see the blessing of Christian culture, there are wide differences of opinion on what exactly that might look like. So of course, we need to be patient, and study the issues through as carefully as we can. Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of time.
We have seen in the last generation, with the explosion of Christian academies, and the parallel explosion of homeschooling, something which the parents involved thought would be culturally “neutral.” They thought they were doing nothing more than saying, “Not with my kid, you don’t.” They thought they were doing little more than simply exercising a personal choice. But these parents were actually setting in motion a series of events which make it absolutely necessary for the Church to address the question of Christian culture. And they did this by establishing (with many variations between homeschools, tutorial services, and Christian schools) a recognizable Christian paideia. And this means that the pressure is on. What next?
The reaction of the secularists to all of this shows that the children of this generation are often shrewder than the children of light. They know, far better than we do, what is actually at stake. They know where we are headed, even if we don’t.