“In arguing for a return to the disciplined study of Latin, we do not do so mindlessly, simply because Latin is old. Some things improve with age, like wine, but other things do not, like pizza. I want to argue that Latin is in the former category” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 139).
History Is A River
“In our individualistic times, we tend to think of previous generations or eras as tthough they were a series of ponds. We used to live around a pond that everyone called ‘the fifties.’ Then later we lived aroaund another pond called ‘the nineties.’ But this is not how the Bible encourages us to think about …
History is Organic
“We must also recover a doctrine of generations. Our children grow. They do not grow up in a detached way, as though the twig were unrelated to the branch, which in turn is unrelated to the tree. Our children are not interchangeable ball bearings, able to be placed in different machines across the world; they …
The History of the Church Is the Center of World History
“In the providence of God, the kingdom of God was preached in the Greco-Roman world, and Christianity spread, for the most part, north and west. The direction of this movement has changed recently but only in the last century or so. Now the kingdom of God is not to be identified with Western culture, but …
Keeping An Edge On Our Kitchen Knives
“At this point, all Christian educators must know that clear thinking is a moral issue. Blurry thinking is one of the great sins of the age. To teach the dialectical stage without a constant grounding in the ethical absolutes of Scripture is worse than folly. Learning to distinguish rightly, learning to evaluate, is the meaning …
Canaries and the Canadian Moose
“At the same time, we are not required to believe the opposite of whatever any unbeliever discovers. Through common grace, many unbelievers have noticed that the sky is blue and that canaries are yellow. This is fine, and faithfulness does not require any hot denials from us. However, the fact that unbelievers think that the …
Dullardry, That”s It
“Polish without substance is sophistry. Substance without polish is . . . well, actually we don’t know what it is because nobody pays attention to it” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 133).
The Magical Comeback
“The American church has a relatively short history of assuming that true Christianity disappeared when the last apostle died and did not reappear until the camp meetings on the Kentucky frontier in 1799. Some, more moderate in their views, do not think the church disappeared until the third or fourth century, but it always seems …
All Alone Like Many Others
“Those who are laboring for a recovery of true education in our day can feel lonely at times. Some feel lonely all the time. But it has always been this way. Lonely education reformers are part of a great host” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 128).
Faith Is No Supplement
[Speaking of Anselm] “This glad acceptance of the complete authority of Christ is one of the most striking things about the intellectual life of the medieval period. Faith was not added on to the life of the mind; it was the only possible foundation for the life of the mind” (The Case for Classical Christian …