"... since what we teach in catechism is the Scriptures and the confessions, that should properly be considered the official teaching ministry of the church of Jesus Christ. Parents entrusted with the spiritual education of their children fulfill their responsibility under the care and guidance of the church's elders.
. . .
'Two parties,' said Matthew Henry, 'parents in their families and... ministers in more public assembles, are necessary, and do mutually assist each other, and neither will excuse the want of the other.'
We have to take care that the elders do not usurp the role of parents. In God's covenantal structuring of the church he has never set elders or catechism teachers between parents and children or in place of parents. Elders, therefore, may not shove parents aside, nor may parents vacate their position in favor of elders. Instead, by administering a good catechism program, the elders fulfill their role by insisting and ensuring that the parents of the church obey God's command to instruct their children in his ways (Dt. 6:6-9, Eph. 6:4)."
-Donald Van Dyken, Rediscoving Catechism, 91, 101.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Parents and Elders
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Parenting isn't a Spectator Sport
"It is true that we cannot make believers of our children and it's good to be reminded that we are but men and that the blessing of God and the power of the Holy Spirit alone change hearts and lives. That should keep us humble and prayerful. However, if we know the apostle Paul, we will be convinced that he spared no amount of laboring and striving, preaching and teaching, pleading and argument if by any means he might save some.
An analogy from farming will clarify the point. When we walk in the field we confess that the Spirit alone gives life to our corn crop. But the Holy Spirit has been pleased to bind himself to means. We do not get 180 bushels of corn to the acre by pulling out a lawn chair. Instead we pray and plow, disc, fertilize, plant, irrigate, spray, and cultivate. Ora et labora, pray and work."
-Donald Van Dyken, Rediscovering Catechism, 72.
Precocious Tribes of Pharisees
"In all of Bible teaching we must remember that we are catechizing in the Word, in the Truth. This must always be very personal, for we are not aiming to produce a tribe of precocious Pharisees who can list biblical facts and lay out the five points of Calvinism but never know their Savior. Rather, in the Word and Truth they meet and come to know the persons of their God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
-Donald Van Dyken, Rediscovering Catechism, 57.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Bible First
"We teach first the Bible and then the confessions, the Bible because it is God speaking to his people, and the confessions because they are the church speaking to God, answering his Word."
-Donald Van Dyken, Rediscovering Catechism, 56.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sound Down
"The word 'catechism' derives from the Greek word katecheo which is found in several places in Scripture. The most familiar is Luke 1:4, where Luke explains why he wrote his Gospel: 'that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed [catechichized].' Like many Greek words katecheo is put together from two words, in this case kata, meaning 'down toward,' and echeo, meaning 'to sound.' Katecheo is 'sound down.'"
-Donald Van Dyken, Rediscovering Catechism, 12-13.
Top 20 Christian College Professors
College Crunch ranks the top 20 Christian college professors. Not sure what all the criteria were for this. But still interesting to see who is considered particularly influential and important in the academic world.
Ben Carson, Robert P. George, Alister McGrath, Al Mohler, Alvin Plantinga, Marilynne Robinson, and N.T. Wright make the list.
You can find the entire post here.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Classical Education Meets Classic Rock
"Logos School turns 30 this year, and we have events planned throughout, culminating with this amazing concert gala in the spring. The Logos 30th Birthday Benefit Concert will be a dazzling evening of classic rock and blues featuring Douglas Wilson's Jenny Geddes Band with many other special guests.
This fundraising event will be web cast LIVE for supporters and alumni around the country to enjoy!
Although Logos is the oldest classical and Christian school, it is not immune to the current financial downturn. We pray this event will help insure continued growth and stability - all to the glory of God."
See a video and read more about it here.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Educating for Worship
[Originally posted back in 2006, the following is an excerpt from a chapter I wrote for Veritas Press' Omnibus III Textbook. This excerpt was published in VP's "epistula" e-newsletter in September 2006.]
For many, Adolph Hitler was the conservative, “family values” politician. Hitler passionately cared about the German family. He argued vehemently for rights of common workers, he spoke out against the so-called “liberation of women” from their callings in the home, and he encouraged a community culture that welcomed children and large families. Nazi papers, movies and educational curriculum consistently encouraged sexual fidelity and chastity, and they honored the responsibilities of mothers and wives in the raising of children and supporting their husbands. Hitler furthered his claims of defending the sanctity of the family through his suppression and execution of homosexuals throughout the war. Gypsies were another people group generally known for their immorality and less-than-orthodox lifestyles. These Hitler likewise suppressed and persecuted in various ways, gaining respect from the average German family. When Hitler came to power, his economic policies dramatically improved the nation almost overnight. Jobs were created largely through efforts to mobilize Germany for Hitler’s plans of expansion. Highway systems spread through the country to enable quick transportation of troops and supplies. Factories and technological plants sprang up in months, producing weapons, supplies, food, clothing and, of course, all the Nazi literature and media central to educating the masses in the Nazi program. The famous Volkswagen Beetle also appeared on German roads at this time, encouraging and allowing the common German man the freedom of economical travel. While Hitler outlawed all trade unions and every other political party, he silenced a great deal of dissidence with prosperity. German workers were given holidays and vacation time, plenty of work produced plenty of income, wives were encouraged to be home-centered, new schools and educational programs revitalized education and gave many opportunities to the children and youth of Germany. These family values, this sort of successful conservative progress, looked to many like a new Christian Germany emerging from the ashes of the liberalism of the previous fifty years. Hitler was also outspoken against communism, the atheistic political program of the Soviet Union. Hitler claimed to have a high regard for the right of private property and many basic, everyday freedoms. Hitler and the Nazi Party seemed to Germany to present the way of progress and rebirth. Ever since the First World War, Germany had suffered terribly from economic depression, political indecision and infighting; here at last, Hitler and the Nazis presented a unified and confident alternative to liberalism and socialism.
Recognizing all of these supposed “blessings” of Adolph Hitler as ruler is important for pointing out how the Christian faith dramatically diverges from Hitler. As we have seen, Hitler’s plans were larger than just some idea of “struggle.” Hitler believed that in, addition to pure blood, the next most necessary provision for progress and evolution was Lebensraum or “living space.” In order to win the fight, to prevail in the struggle, Germans needed bigger backyards. This necessity justified the expansion of German borders. It was the greater good of progress and freedom for the Aryan race that warranted the invasion of France, the annexation of Austria and the lightening warfare (or Blitzkrieg) that conquered a number of other eastern European countries within days. It is important to point out that the Scriptures also teach that the Kingdom of God will expand. In fact Jesus sent his disciples into the whole world, to every land and people, to make disciples by baptizing them and teaching them how to live like Christ. In other words, King Jesus has sent His people on a mission of world conquest. But the significant differences between this world conquest and what Hitler imagined are in the method of conquest and the reason for conquest. Where Hitler believed that a pure race of Aryan peoples would subjugate all the inferior races of the world and use them as slaves, like so many cattle, the Great Commission of Jesus sends His people into the world to declare the good news of salvation to every land and race. In fact, faithful ministers of the gospel are declaring that there is only one pure-blooded man, and His name is Jesus, and He shed his blood for all the nations of the earth to make them pure and blameless before God. Where Hitler lifted up Aryan blood and condemned the nations of the world, we lift up the perfect blood of Christ and proclaim the salvation of the world.
This story of Hitler’s “wooing” of Germany also serves as a solemn warning to American evangelical Christians. Given that Christians are some of the most enthusiastic supporters of “family values” and “conservative politics,” we must recognize the slippery slope of following strategies like voting for the “lesser of two evils.” One of the most important ways we must protect ourselves and our descendants from the temptation of seeing politics as our savior must be the determination that all reformation begins in the Church. Faithful worship results in honest, joyful living before the face of God, and honest, joyful living is what results (eventually) in economic blessing, political stability and peace. Germany bought the lie that they were completely backed into a corner; they believed that Hitler really was the only way out. But Christ has promised that we are part of a Kingdom against which the gates of Hades will not prevail (Matt. 16:18).
And so here you are in high school in the 21st century. Why are you in school? Why are you reading this page? Why are you reading Mein Kampf? You may be wondering these very things yourself; or perhaps you are quite sure it was your teacher’s fault or that your mom or dad “made you do it.” But let me offer you an even more meaningful reason. You are studying and reading this book because you are training to be a faithful worshiper of the Triune God. Hitler was absolutely right: education’s central purpose is to train young men and women to be the most useful subjects of the kingdom. However, he was terribly wrong for believing that any amount of struggle–however heroic–would amount to anything in the blender of Fate. He was terribly wrong to believe that Germany, a plot of land in central Europe, was the pinnacle of civilization. In the end, all his dramatic posturing is like watching a small child wrestling in a sandbox with his eyes closed pretending to be doing deadly battle with some unseen foe. God looks down from heaven and laughs; He holds in scorn all those who set themselves against His Anointed. But we do well to consider: What is the chief end of man? What is the greatest calling of every subject of the Kingdom of God? Your central purpose from beginning to end, first to last, your greatest task and privilege is the worship and glory of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This being the case, the central purpose of education is the training of Christian worshipers. The reason you are reading this essay is so that you might chant, sing, clap, pray, kneel, raise hands, listen, eat, drink and shout with understanding, reverence and joy to the end that the God of heaven and earth will send justice like summer rain and mercy like a downpour on the earth. The reason you study math, science and art is so that your imagination will be filled with wonder and awe at the Creator of the most mind blowing project ever: the world. And whether you are learning to read music or playing an instrument, whether your hand is holding a pencil or gesturing in the theater, you are training yourself for the warfare of worship. You are teaching your body gratitude; you are teaching your soul thanksgiving. There is hardly an adequate evaluation of your progress, but the best grade you can receive is the outworking of a thankful heart. If you have truly learned Algebra, if you have mastered the story of Western Civilization, if you can tell me the names of the constellations that whirl about our heads, then you will do it with laughter in your voice, you will do it with joy in your heart and gratitude in your bones. Worship is the point of learning because worship is the point of life. And worship is the point of life both because this is the chief honor of every faithful subject in the Kingdom of God and because it is the head of many waters, the council chambers of the King of all the earth. From the world gathered at the table of the Lord issues the great judgments of the King.
Hitler’s world is the story of eternal collision, unending struggle and violence. In that world blood and genes are the fundamentals of life, and pure Aryan blood is Hitler’s absolute best. But the Christian story scoffs at the small-mindedness of German nationalism even as it scoffs at American imperialism. The Lord of Heaven derides Hitler’s arrogant racism and sickening genocide as much as He abhors the slaughter of the unborn in our own country. But this is all the inevitable end of evolutionary thought. If the world is a galactic mosh pit, then bigger is better, might does make right. However, history tells the story better. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. But blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. And the sons of God are welcome at His table. The gospel declares the pure and undefiled blood of Jesus Christ, whose blood purifies every nation of the world. Hitler was right: pure blood will conquer the world. But ironically (for Hitler) that blood is the blood that was shed by an innocent Jewish man two thousand years ago. The sons and daughters of the Most High are family through the blood of Christ and are therefore invited to the family meetings. The Christian faith encompasses all of life, visible and invisible. Forgiveness cleanses the soul, and fruit proceeds out of the heart. In a mystery, the visible and invisible mingle and mix. In a wonderful glory God adopts us into His family with water and faith, He feeds us with His word and bread and wine. And we bless one another with words and smiles and hugs. Joy makes bones strong, and wisdom gives long life. We live in the world that God made, a world where heaven and earth touch, for we have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God. In Christian worship we ascend into the throne room in heaven to ask the Father for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Fate speaks, destiny beckons and all of the scrapings of Hitler are like sand in the wind. But the Lord speaks, the Triune God beckons and the prayer of the righteous man avails much.
Friday, April 30, 2010
NSA Grads and Law Schools
Roy Atwood, dean of New St. Andrews College, reports that an NSA graduate has recently been accepted and decided to enroll in the Duke University law school. He writes:
I just received an email from one of our many gifted New Saint Andrews graduates who has been teaching at an ACCS school “back East” for several years and completed a Master’s degree in Liberal Arts at Duke University along the way. He has decided to head off to law school next year and was accepted at an impressive list of law programs at leading universities:
Cornell University
Duke University
Georgetown University
University of Minnesota
Northwestern University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Washington
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)
University of North Carolina
Vanderbilt University
Washington & Lee University
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Omnibus from Veritas Press
Here's a little shout out to the folks at Veritas Press, specifically their Omnibus series.
I've taught through the Omnibus III textbook through the Veritas Press Scholars Online Academy, used portions of the other texts in other venues, and written a few chapters throughout the series, but I think these texts are a good step in the right direction for classical education, schools, homeschoolers, and coop groups.
Here are a few of the highlights for me:
1. The entire series aims to include units of study on every book of the Bible. Until classical education makes studying the entire Bible a non-negotiable, I think words like "Christan worldview" are vague at best. The most important text for Christians is the Bible. Is that clear from our curriculum? The Omnibus series is pushing that aim forward.
2. The Omnibus series is consciously integrative. There are echoes throughout the books of other chapters, other readings, and many repeated themes. It challenges students to connect dots in literature, history, Bible, art, philosophy, ethics, politics, and practical every day life. These are the kinds of conversations every parent wants to be having with their kids on a regular basis.
3. The method seems very helpful to me. Every chapter begins with orientation material: What is this book about? Who wrote it? What's important about it? And then there's an essay drawing out the most important themes and lessons and evaluating the work by the standard of Scripture. Following this, there is a suggested lesson plan for reading the text, with discussion questions, recitation questions, and suggested projects and activities. These lesson plans lean heavily in the discussion direction, lots of discussion and conversation. Done right, it requires teachers to really dig into texts, raise very significant questions and issues, and challenges students to grapple with the ideas themselves.
4. Related to the last point is the fact that the series encourages natural conversations about just about everything. The book selection is fairly eclectic, though it draws heavily from what is widely considered the "western canon" of the Great Books. And the readings and discussions don't shy away from challenging ethical issues, sexuality, or particularly dark themes. The series doesn't bring these issues up in a preachy-moralistic way, rather, it comes up like real life, where teachers can naturally work through the issues and apply God's Word thoughtfully.
Lastly, a few warnings or guidelines that I would add (and I have said to a number of people who have asked):
1. No textbook can replace a faithful and gifted teacher. You can have the best curriculum in the world, and the students will hate learning, struggle to understand, and be worse for it in the end. While I think these textbooks are a significant step in the right direction, I would still rather have a faithful, Christian mom or dad or teacher teaching what he or she knows with joy and enthusiasm. If the textbooks help (and I think they could) then great.
2. Every good teacher knows that the curriculum is just a tool. The curriculum is not the teacher; the teacher is. This may be just another way of restating the previous point, but what I mean is that good teachers will pick and choose lessons, chapters, texts throughout the Omnibus series. The textbooks are just big piles of suggestions and ideas, and they need to be applied with wisdom to every classroom, every family, and every student.
3. If the Omnibus series errs on anything, it's probably in the overall reading load. But I always prefer this error. I'd rather aim high and have teachers use wisdom and cut certain readings or cut certain students a bit of slack. But this is why the centrality of the teacher is so crucial. A faithful and gifted teacher knows his/her students, knows their frames, and knows the difference between the student who is out of breath and loving it and the student who is out of breath and about to collapse.
I remember one time a parent telling me that his son had never worked so hard in all his life for school, and every morning he was waiting at the door with his backpack on asking if it was time to go yet. The dad said it was a strange but highly encouraging experience to see his son working so hard and eager for more. And that's what we want in our kids. We want them to learn to work hard, but we want them to grow up learning to love that hard work, loving learning, loving God and His world.
If I have any fear of the classical education scene it's definitely this last bit. Having a bunch of good books and high ideals is not the same thing as loving students and teaching them to love. If classical education is heading in the right direction, our students should be overflowing with the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, and peace. And those fruits are far more important than high SATs, fluency in Latin, or Ninja Logic skills.
Of course, we don't usually have to decide between the two. Usually we can do both. But we just want to make sure that all these "blessings" are being received as blessings. The great danger -- and this is the danger of bringing kids up in the Faith in general -- is that we can actually inoculate kids to truth, goodness, and beauty. We can pile these blessings all over them in a mechanical and thoughtless way, and when they graduate high school, they've had enough already.
Anyway, a few random thoughts, recommendations, and encouragement, hopefully. And again, I'd definitely recommend that you check out the Omnibus series if you haven't already. Some good stuff there.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Again?
"The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers 'I've read it already' to be a conclusive argument against reading a work." (C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, 2)
Friday, January 15, 2010
Pangram
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is an English language pangram. It's a sentence that uses every letter of the English alphabet once. Heh. That's pretty nifty. I just learned this from Edmund Clowney's BST commentary on 1 Peter.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Atheist Wisdom
Atheist Michael Ruse explains here, why he thinks the "New Atheists" are a "bloody disaster." Here's what I thought was some of the best bits:
Most importantly, the new atheists are doing terrible damage to the fight to keep Creationism out of the schools. The First Amendment does not ban the teaching of bad science in publicly funded schools. It bans the teaching of religion. That is why it is crucial to argue that Creationism, including its side kick IDT, is religion and not just bad science. But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If teaching "God exists" is teaching religion - and it is - then why is teaching "God does not exist" not teaching religion? Obviously it is teaching religion. But if science generally and Darwinism specifically imply that God does not exist, then teaching science generally and Darwinism specifically runs smack up against the First Amendment. Perhaps indeed teaching Darwinism is implicitly teaching atheism. This is the claim of the new atheists. If this is so, then we shall have to live with it and rethink our strategy about Creationism and the schools. The point is however that the new atheists have lamentably failed to prove their point, and excoriating people like me who show the failure is (again) not very helpful.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Teaching like Jesus
Jesus is the greatest teacher.
And He taught frequently in parables that were meant to confuse His listeners. He told parables so that "seeing they would not see, and hearing they would not hear..."
In fact Mark makes a particular point about showing how Jesus only spoke in parables except when He was alone with his disciples. The only way you can find out what the parables mean is if you follow Jesus and ask Him about them later when you're alone.
If this is something of a pedagogical pattern that we ought to learn from and follow, this means that some of the best teachers are the ones who only tell enough to incite their students. They only tell enough to confuse them, to poke them, to frustrate them, to draw them in, and then they patiently wait for the students to come up afterward with questions. They wait for the emails a few days later when the student shows that he or she has been thinking about what the teacher said.
The art of teaching is not merely the art of bestowing information or understanding or wisdom. The art of teaching is also the art of concealing knowledge and wisdom, burying treasure in a field and leaving behind ambiguous innuendos to drive students to desperate exploration or despairing apathy.
And that's what wisdom does. Wisdom throws rocks into crowds, cuts babies in half, divides between fools and wise, good and evil. Wisdom lights fires.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Who Needs Phonics?
In The Love of Learning and Desire for God, Jean Leclercq describes the grammar studies in Benedictine monasteries: "During the Merovingian period, this teaching program was reduced practically to the psalms: and instead of beginning by the grammatical analysis of letters, then of syllables, words, and finally of sentences, the child is immediately put in contact with the psalter, in which he learns to read first verses, and then whole psalms." Leclercq goes on to clarify that this was more by necessity (for students who were not literate) than by design, but it is still intriguing to consider a grammar school curriculum centered on the psalms. It's been done before.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Shameless Plug
As it turns out, the good folks over at Veritas Press are now offering a wide range of online classes for homeschooling families. This fall, I will be teaching two sections of their Omnibus III which consists of the literature and history and biblical-theological themes from the Reformation to the Modern Era. This should be an excellent year examining a number of classic texts such as Pilgrim's Progress, the Federalist Papers, A Tale of Two Cities, 1984, The Great Gatsby, and several others.
If you or someone you know might be interested this class or any of the others being offered through Veritas, you can find out more information here.
Cheers!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
You are the Curriculum
This is an outline of a recent presentation I gave at New Covenant School in Anderson, SC.
Toward a Biblical Vision for a Classical Curriculum
Introduction
It was St. Augustine who said in his Confessions that “we learn better in a free state of curiosity than under fear and compulsion.” At the same time, every experienced teacher knows that some stuff just isn’t fun. Many of students, we think, shouldn’t even be trusted in “free state of curiosity” even locked up alone in a room with their history book. Please note that I am taking for granted very basic Christian values like hard work, discipline, and high academic standards. Nothing that follows is meant to suggest otherwise.
Teachers as Curriculum
Given what we’ve already seen about the nature of teaching and knowledge, it is not too difficult to realize that teachers are the most important curriculum. Another way of saying this is that “subjects” don’t exist on their own. What we mean when we say “subject” is the cumulated efforts of study of some area of creation and history. When our students study “math” we mean that we are introducing them to the labors and observations of people. And then we (the teachers) are standing up their in front of them as yet one more witness of how the world works in these particular instances. Every individual teacher is the face at the front of a great crowd of witnesses on any given subject. And yet, you, the flesh and blood teacher at the front of the classroom are the most important one for your students. The task of these students is to imitate you; to become like you (Lk. 6:40). You are not only called to be “good examples,” you are called to be the examples. Your job is to love your area of subject so much as to draw your students into the story; you’re aiming to stun, to romance, to stupefy your students with your studies. But what does this look like?
A Curriculum of Play
By this I do not mean that education should be less than rigorous or that we need to lower academic standards. Rather, if we see education as centrally concerned with imitation and discipleship then it is not too difficult to see the need for learning to be good actors. Christians have been suspicious of theater and drama for its many failures in the areas of morality, but “play” is central to being good Christians. We are called to “act” like Christ and to act like those who imitate him well. Also, if we understand knowledge as a kind of loving with all that we are then acting is a way of embodying the truth. Short plays, skits, and speeches can be excellent opportunities to live out what is being learned. Stories also invite our students to imagine themselves in foreign situations, to pretend, to act out (if only mentally) the world that the teacher is inviting them into.
A Curriculum of Poetry
While Augustine said that we learn what we love; it was Blaise Pascal who said that we love what we find lovely. This means that as teachers, we are called to present the world that we have been called to present in way that is beautiful, noble, and good. For several semesters of science, we used Audubon Field Guides, and we spent as many hours as we could outside observing and discovering. When we weren’t outside, we were inside drawing pictures of them, learning their names, and writing stories and poetry about them. Included in poetry is a love of song and the Psalms in particular. Martin Luther said that singing something is like saying it twice. Putting words to music gives them glory and beauty. Of course some subjects fit will with “ditties”, but we should be careful not to ignore the glories of the Psalms and hymns of our heritage. Finally, poetry teaches us to integrate. There is no area of the world that Jesus is not Lord of, and thus, if all things consist and are held together in Him, then they must all relate and supplement one another. The glory of poetry is metaphor, seeing the world through the world. As people of the Book, we should be people enamored with good books. As people of the Word, we should be people enamored with words: Scripture, literature, poetry, languages, etc.
A Curriculum of Laughter
When we studied history and literature, I wrote short, silly plays for my students to act out. Often enough, the plays would include various one-liners about things completely off topic (e.g. video games, baseball, dirty laundry, etc.). The point was of course to make my students laugh, but it was also to teach them something fundamentally true about the world and history. We live in the world that a good and sovereign God rules over. The story of the world and creation is a story that pleases God and he rejoices in. And we have been invited into that story. This means that we need to learn to rejoice and laugh at the world with the Lord of heaven. We know that the story of history is the story of God’s triumph over all evil with his grace. The death and resurrection is a comedy, and therefore the history of the world is comedy, a romance: it will have a happy ending. From this point of view, teaching our students to laugh with joy and wonder at the world that God has made is teaching our students to love the Triune God and revel in His goodness.
Conclusions
We have argued that fundamentally, when we say “classical education” we mean a full-orbed biblical education. We mean that we are seeking to follow the old ways, the good paths. We are seeking the good life, the life of abundance. We want students that have sharp minds and quick wits but also fat souls, joyful and thankful for their studies, not inoculated to the goodness of God. We have noted that learning is essentially discipleship, and since worship is the center of Christian discipleship, Christian education must flow out of Christian worship too. Just as worship is a dramatic performance and appearance before God, so too learning should be dramatic, artistic, and even theatrical. As Christian worship is filled with the poetry of God (his words and songs and blessings), so too Christian education should be filled with beautiful words and song. And just as Christian worship is a declaration of the Lordship of Jesus and His victory in the world, so too education should be full of the joy and laughter of faith. Perhaps one of the hardest skills that teachers need to learn is how not to tell all, how to intrigue and surprise, how to make our students hungry for more.
Classical Education is Christian Education
This is an outline of a recent presentation I gave at New Covenant School in Anderson, SC.
Toward A Biblical Vision for Classical Education
Introduction
While it is exciting to see what God has done over last 25 years in this country with Christian Education, as educators, we know that one of the most important disciplines of learning is repetition and review. It’s not a silly question to ask, “What do we mean by Classical Education?” Some have emphasized the “classics” in terms of content, others have emphasized “classical empires/culture”, and still others have used the term primarily to describe the medieval Trivium, some in terms of subject matter others more specifically as applied to K-12 learning stages. And many of us have attempted to do a combination of all of these things.
Classical Education
We know that when we say classical there is at least some sense in which we are looking back. We realize that we have gone off the trail; we’ve lost our way in some way. And we want to get back to where we were going before. We see the ruins around us, and we want to follow the prophet’s exhortation. Jeremiah 6:16: “Thus says the LORD: "Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls.” But as Christians it is not merely enough to find old stuff. Dust is not the guarantee of success. Unfortunately, it appears that this is the idea some folks have gotten when it comes to classical education. But we are Christians, and we know that sin and ugliness is old too. So when it comes to looking back, we want to look back to what we know was good. The only infallible source of history and antiquity is the Bible. Thus, as Christians, when we say “classical” we mean first and foremost biblical; we mean Christian.
Classical Education as Discipleship
Of courses it’s not enough to sprinkle a bunch of Bible verses in our text books and move on. Having a weekly or daily chapel doesn’t make an education classical or Christian. The Scriptures speak of learning and education in highly personal terms, in terms of discipleship. Ephesians 4:17-21: “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus…” Luke 6:40: "A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” In other words, our students are not studying subjects; they are studying us. We, like Paul, are urging our students to imitate us as we imitate Christ (1 Cor. 4:16, 11:1). Imitation is more than just ideas or words. Imitation involves facial expressions, attitudes, actions, and more. We imitate Christ by doing what he says, but also doing as he did as, for example, in the Lord’s Supper (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23). This is why worship is the center of our discipleship.
Classical Education as Knowing and Loving God
We learn not only be watching and listening but also by doing and saying and acting. Much of what we are talking about has a lot to do with our theory of knowledge. What does it mean to know something? If we want our math students to *know* math, it would be a good idea to have some notion of that might look like before we begin. If we start at the beginning, we remember that “knowing” is first used in connection to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Knowledge is presented as something that is far from neutral. Without denying the historicity of any of Genesis, the fact is that one lesson we learn is that we must acquire knowledge under the blessing of God or under the cursing of God. There is no other option. In other words, learning is covenantal. We will either keep covenant by faith as we learn or will break covenant by unbelief as we study. There is no middle road; there is no neutrality.
We know from the law and Christ’s own words that the entire law and the prophets are summarized with the two greatest commandments (Mt. 22:37-40). Fundamentally, this is how we are called to keep covenant with God: loving him with everything that we are. And this brings us back to the idea of knowing. Shortly after the incident in Eden, we are told that Adam “knew” his wife and she bore a son (Gen. 4:1). Knowing is something we do with our bodies and our minds. And this kind of knowing is really a deep sort of loving. St. Augustine is remembered as saying that in order for us to come to know something we must in some way come to love it. In other words, learning and knowing is not primarily a kind of “getting” but rather a kind of “giving.” When students learn literature or spelling or music, they are giving themselves to the stories, to the rules, to the practice of doing those things well. They are imitating their teachers, watching their teachers love their areas of study and following after them.
Conclusions
What we are aiming for as classical educators is the training of students who follow Christ in every area of life. Our aim is teach our students how to live well. We’re not aiming merely full brains; we’re aiming for fat souls (Prov.16:24, 19:8). Souls are fed with imagination, laughter, stories, poetry, puzzles, and more laughter. We are not merely aiming to have students graduate without having left the faith; we are not aiming merely to ‘make it’ to college. We are aiming to have disciples that are militant and courageous for Christ in every sphere of life, students who love life because they have known Christ and love him with all that they are.
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Virgil and the Male
I've been meaning to get a few thoughts down that I had last year. I've finally found a free moment and I thought I'd give it a shot.
I haven't read much scholarly work on Virgil or The Aeneid, so it's quite possible that I'm just rehashing the usual or that I’m completely out to lunch. That said, it struck me last spring when I was teaching through the story that one of the central themes is that of masculinity. At least one of the questions that he is attempting to tackle is 'What does it mean to be a man?'
My thesis is that for Virgil, and perhaps most Romans, the answer was that a man was one who found his identity -as a man- alongside other men, particularly the warlike. Aeneas loses his wife to the flames of Troy, but he finds strength in the wisdom and direction of his father. It is only when his father dies, that he becomes distracted by the wiles of Dido. And this is just as much a commentary on what is feminine. Throughout the story, the goddess Juno is the one harassing Aeneas and bringing trouble and hardship to him. She is the ultimate personification of 'furor', full of irrational and emotionally driven angst. She struggles against Fate, which by this time, seems even more powerful than the king of the gods himself. Consequently, Aeneas must learn 'pietas', that is, true piety which is submission to the impersonal and distant decrees of Fate. Zeus is the god who has the most weight to throw around, but he seems to be in submission to Fate himself. Thus with the matter of Dido, Aeneas is not only ridding himself of 'furor' and submitting to Fate, but he is ridding himself of the feminine and thus becoming more of a man (and godlike). It is only as Aeneas leaves Dido and finds guidance from his Father (in a vision) that he is able to pursue the course set out by Fate. The only other prominent woman in the story is Camilla, the Amazon warrior girl. She is praised and honored, though not surprisingly, because she is a warrior. She fights like a man and dies like one too.
My point being that the pattern of masculinity in the Aeneid is almost the mirror opposite of the pattern given in Scripture. Aeneas leaves the woman that thinks she is his wife and cleaves to his father. It is in this cleaving that he is able to embrace his calling as a warrior and eventual founder of a great city. As a husband he thwarts the fates and is idle and unproductive. True manhood, true masculinity, it would seem, is cleaving to men and finding strength through submission to Fate and swinging a sword. But the Creation pattern paints the picture differently. Men are not good alone, rather they find their fullness in leaving father and mother and cleaving to their wife. This is not to say that some have not been called to celibacy, but the normal pattern is that of a man with his bride. This is true masculinity. Not only is the Aeneid a slap in the face of the high calling given to women, it (again, not surprisingly) falls short of the glory of the gospel. The Son left his Father, and though he has returned, has not returned empty handed, having squandered time and energy for nothing. We have no need to build a funeral pyre, scream curses at our savior, and commit suicide. He has married us and is bringing us into fellowship with His Father. And it is through us that He is building his eternal city.
Finally, it is not surprising that Virgil would have expressed this pattern elsewhere. In his eighth Eclogue, Virgil records two shepherds lamenting the loss of their lovers. The first sings of how the woman he loved left him and will probably never return. The song ends in despair, as he contemplates suicide. The proverbs of Virgil would say that the way of any woman is death. The following song, is said by Virgil to be a reply. At any rate, the second fellow sings of his lover who has “changed his mind”, but this shepherd’s reaction is not despair but rather that of a magic spell and prayers to the gods. Through the course of this short ballad we learn that the lover who has gone is male, and he, whether in response to the charms or not, returns to his lover at the end of the song. It’s quite possible that I’m wrong about my interpretation of this eclogue, maybe there’s a better way to read it. But it does not seem out of place for a Roman to be insinuating the “glory” of male lovers, nor does it seem unfitting for Virgil. The logic of the Aeneid seems to demand homosexuality as true masculinity. The shepherd, like Aeneas, submits to the gods and finds love and manhood in other men.
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