“Unless faithful worship of the living God is at the center of our lives and communities, and therefore at the center of our children’s education, ‘Christian worldview education’ will simply be one more hollow, intellectualistic experiment” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 96).
Thinking From the Chest
“The Scriptures speak of God as the One who tries the ‘heart and reins’ of men. Our metaphor for this would be God testing the ‘head and heart,’ the reason and emotions. But in the ancient Hebrew metaphor, the heart was the seat of the intellect, and the reins — the kidneys — were the …
Not An All-Purpose Disinfectant
“A Christian worldview does not somehow automatically ‘sanitize’ the world so that we can all go watch any R-rated movie we want now, for any reason we want, because ‘we have a Christian worldview.’ Put bluntly, a Christian worldview is not an excuse for compromised sinning. A Christian worldview is not an all-purpose disinfectant” (The …
Trying to Cover the Smell
“A Christian worldview is not a condiment added to a plate full of neutral food in order to flavor it. The faith of our fathers is not an educational afterthought. The ‘potatoes’ always come from somebody’s kitchen. Sometimes Hindus, Muslims, and atheists can be induced to eat Christian potatoes (because the Christian education provided at …
Leaving the Gun At Home
“And in some of the subtle cases, we have to consider what a Christian worldview almost is. In the first place, a Christian worldview is not the same thing as Christian worldview jargon. The oldest trick in the world is to attach oneself to some promising movement or other by simply putting on the uniform …
Christian College Brochures
“From the brochures, it would be fair to conclude that the purpose of attending an evangelical Christian college is to ride horses, eat pizza, and make lifetime friends. In other words, it was hardly a clarion call to academic discipline, integrity, and hard work. At least one college I know of has a Dean of …
Like A Cheap Sweater
“A worldview is like a cheap sweater (or a good sweater too, for that matter). If you pull on a loose strand on your left arm, it is not long before your right arm begins to unravel. Everything is connected. Pedagogy is connected to theology, which is connected to worship, which is connected to politics, …
Western Culture and the Kingdom of God
“At the same time, Western culture receives the emphasis it does because this is the culture in which the Christian faith has made the greatest advances. Western culture is not synonymous with the kingdom of God, but the histories of the two entities are so intertwined that one cannot be understood apart from the other. …
Defining Classical
“The resurgence of classical education over the last decade has been heartening in many respects, but some aspects of it are a bit confusing. No one holds the copyright on the word classical, and given the nature of the word, there has been something of a scramble in the various manifestations of classical education. This …
What’s Wrong With Civil Rights
“There is a vast difference between the way Christians and humanists define ‘civil rights.’ For a Christian rights tend to be negatively defined. For a humanist they are positively stated. For example, a Christian approach can be seen in such common law rights as the right to trial by jury or habeas corpus. A humanist …