“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 …
Schools for Show Poodles
“Far from teaching children to learn the nature of the world and how to occupy an appropriate station in it, they are what my daughter Rachel helpfully called classical schools for ‘show poodles.’ These schools make it easy for critics who oppose a truly superior Christian education (which necessarily includes the inculcation of humility) to …
Isaiah 5:20
“For example, we have gotten to the point where a preacher can spend the entire sermon talking about himself, and his own struggles, and everyone says that he is being open, honest, transparent, and humble. Another man, who proclaims the truth in a way that indicates something would have been true had he never been …
The Tenets of Envy
“In Christian cultures, envy is understood to be one of the seven deadly sins, what Shakespeare identified as a ‘universal wolf.’ But in democratic societies, envy is institutionalized, and the tenets of such envy are diligently taught to the democratic young when they rise up, when they lie down, or when they walk along the …
Inescapable Blasphemy Laws
“Every culture has blasphemy laws. They are not always called that, but no society allows citizens to rail against the reigning deity. In our pluralistic times, these blasphemy laws are called ‘hate crimes’ legislation, among other euphemisms, but they are really religious protections to keep the reigning god, demos, from being blasphemed” (The Case for …
The Real Salt and Light Argument
“Rightly understood, this is the true ‘salt and light’ argument. Before we can win the children of this world, we have to stop losing our children to that world. And as we teach them their identity in Christ in such a way that they embrace that identity and the terms of the covenant that define …
Constant, Total War
“Van Til is not urging the physical destruction of non-Christians — note his ‘spiritual weapons only and always” — but he does see the task of the Christian educator as one of constant, total war. Every thought must be made captive to Christ. A Christian school is not the place where we complete this task, …
Great Books Aimlessness
“Those who have participated in ‘great books’ conversations inspired by this approach to modern classicism know that few things can wreck the intellectual party more quickly than a claim of absolute truth, goodness, or beauty. The student is equipped for anything the great conversation might bring to him, except for one thing — answers. To …
No Luminous Glow
“God is our life. In Him we live and move and have our being. If He had not created the world, we would not be here (and hence could not do our math). If He had not created the world, there would be no oranges, and hence we could not discover that two oranges plus …
The Evangelical Crouton in the Pluralistic Salad
[Many Christian schools] “see our pluralistic society as a great tossed salad, and they are simply one small evangelical crouton . . . Although they would never state it so baldly, they appear to have quietly translated the Great Commission into something like, ‘Therefore go unto all nations, and do your best to fit right …