Purpose and Nature of Christian Education

For several generations, public schools have educated most Americans, including Christian Americans.The result is that education and public schools are virtually synonymous in American culture. In fact, Spears and Loomis stated that the purpose of their book is “to revive and ground a perennial philosophy of education that integrates essential tenets of the Christian faith” (p. 35), yet the emphasis of their subsequent writing is on Christians in public education settings rather than on a specifically Christian form of education. In recent decades, a movement toward Christian schools has developed. At issue is whether these schools are truly Christian, that is, faithful to biblical principles and mandates, or simply a Christianized version of the neighboring public schools. As Rushdoony stated, “It is a deadly error on the part of the Christian School to assume that its task is similar to that of the ‘public’ or government schools with Bible added to it” (p. 149). Mohler reinforced this point, stating, “The Christian school must not be education dressed up for the church. It must be the church armed for intellectual battle” (p. 33). Any effort to express a distinctly Christian purpose for and expression of education must begin with biblical principles.

What is your impression of or experience with Christian education?  Is it distinctive?  Is it "education dressed up for the church"?  How should we be doing things differently in a school that calls itself Christian?

Unveiling the Creator

"True education is unveiling the all-glorious God of creation . . . in the creation." Dr. Mark Fakkema

"The Christian teacher, rightly beginning with the assumption that mathematics originates with God and consequently possesses a nature which reflects His glory, has the freedom and responsibility to point out the evidence of God's hand in the content of mathematics."  Larry Zimmerman, Truth and the Transcendent: The Origin, Nature, and Purpose of Mathematics