The 4 Questions of Good Christian Education

This would apply to schools and churches alike.  Anthony Bradley writes:

One of the advantages of living in a free society is that parents have multiple options for how they can educate their children, including enrolling them in religious education. Christian education is unique in that teachers can integrate faith and learning in the classroom to unlock academic disciplines from mere materialistic or rational concerns to direct interdependence and collaboration with the providential work of the Triune God in his plan to redeem the entire cosmos.

In light this fact, if any student graduates from a Christian school, at either the secondary or the university level, and cannot answer the following questions I argue that the school is failing. These four questions wed the goal of the Christian life — namely, to glorify God — with our day-to-day lives in a way that expands the scope of how we think about vocation.

Read the rest.

How Classical Education Shapes Us as God Intended

This is a great summary of what we are trying to accomplish with Charis Classical Academy in Madison, WI.

Bradley G. Green:

A funny thing happened as the 20th century came to a close. A number of Christians began to form what were being called "classical and Christian" schools. Believers who would have been (or were) involved in their local traditional Christian school or public school were suddenly making the case for Latin, reading the great books of the Western intellectual tradition, and talking about the traditional liberal arts---the trivium and the quadrivium.

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BTW - Bradley Green's book, The Gospel and the Mind is on sale now as an eBook.  You can check it out here for $2.51.

The Case for Christian Education

James K.A. Smith:

First, Christian education is not meant to be merely “safe” education. The impetus for Christian schooling is not a protectionist concern, driven by fear, to sequester children from the big, bad world. Christian schools are not meant to be moral bubbles or holy huddles where children are encouraged to stick their heads in the sand.

Rather, Christian schools are called to be like Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia: not safe, but good. Instead of antiseptic moral bubbles, Christian schools are moral incubators that help students not only to see the glories of God’s creation but also to discern and understand the brokenness of this fallen world.

While the Christian classroom makes room for appreciating the stunning complexity of cell biology and the rich diversity of world cultures, it’s also a place to understand the systemic injustices behind racism and the macroeconomics of poverty. Christian schools are not places for preserving a naive innocence; they are laboratories to form children who see that our broken world is full of widows, orphans, and strangers we are called to love and welcome.

In short, Christian schools are not a withdrawal from the world; they are a lens and microscope through which to see the world in all its broken beauty.

Second, Christian schools are not just about Bible classes. The curriculum of a Christian school is not the curriculum of a public school plus religion courses. While Christian education does deepen students’ knowledge of God’s Word, it’s not Bible class that makes a school Christian.

Rather, the Reformed vision of Christian education emphasizes that the entire curriculum is shaped and nourished by faith in Christ, “for by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17). Christian schools are not just extensions of Sunday school focused on learning religion; they are Christ-rooted educational institutions focused on religious learning.

Third, Christian education is not a merely “private” education. Christian schools are not meant to be elite enclaves for the wealthy. To the extent that Christian schools become pious renditions of “prep schools,” they fail to appreciate the radical, biblical calling of Christian education.

Read the rest.

We seek to instill these values in the school we are starting in Madison, WI called Charis Classical Academy.

Get Dr. Smith's books here.

Learning To See Beauty and Error

(HT)

Mike Horton on Classical Christian Education

Mike Horton gives a plug for classical Christian education.

If you missed my wife's posts on this type of school we are starting in Madison, WI, you can find them here.