Should Christians Be Classical?
Perplexing questions about the pagans…
I regularly talk with parents and prospective parents about the concern of marrying classical and Christian education together. To address that concern I have tried to ask and answer the seminal questions at the heart of the concern. As always, your further discussion of these things with me will help sharpen and aid both our understandings.
Should Christians use pagan ideas in their education?
Let us define our terms. Christian is easy for us, because we can agree rather quickly that someone who truly embraces Christ as defined in Scripture and such Creeds as the Apostle’s Creed or Nicene Creed is at least then a professing Christian. Pagan is somewhat tougher as it can mean either an idolater or a secularist. Certainly someone who is actively worshipping a false god will have many notions and ideas that have no place in the philosophy, vision, and practice of a Christian school. But we should know and understand what those ideas and acts are nonetheless, even if only to refute them. A secularist (one who is seeking to take all religion out of schooling) is a different person all together. His desire is foolish. Man is religious, thus education is religious in its very nature. Christian schools honestly deal with this fact by stating on the front sign that they are religious.
Now, regarding the use of pagan ideas, we affirm the simple statement that, “all truth is God’s Truth.” All men stumble upon some measure of truth just by having to live in a world where God’s Truth is poured into His creation. Christians know this and embrace this and love God all the more for generously pouring out common grace upon all men. In the secularized world of today, one might find more truth in an ancient pagan than he might discover in some shelves of modern bookstores. When we recognize and embrace this, we are not denigrating the faith of the modern, nor are we applauding the degeneracy of many of the ancients, we are simply seeking Truth wherever it may be found, and thanking God as Giver of it when we find it.
Don’t classical schools have to read pagans, and won’t that rob my child of his faith?
We do read books, and lots of them, and many of them by men and women who are not Christian. At the heart of our school is, however, a Christian teacher. Our faculty lead our students safely through the myriad of ideas found in our reading assignments and steer them to Christ through it all. The only way to grow a Christian mind is to make it think about ideas in a Christian manner. To do so, it must work on both Christian and non-Christian thought to grasp what it believes. We would contend that a child’s faith is strengthened in this manner, not weakened.
Isn’t a thorough knowledge of the Bible enough?
This is a very deep question that will receive a short cursory answer here. To be sure, the Church has always held that the Scriptures are the full and sufficient text for salvation. For that reason alone, a thorough knowledge of Scripture is be pursued by all students. But man lives in this world and must be a steward of it. The Scriptures alone are not sufficient for this aspect of man’s duty. Christ Himself expected the Pharisees to be well versed in the Scriptures (Matt. 12:3-5) but He also condemned them for not “reading” or understanding and living according to the truths of general revelation contained in Creation itself (Luke 12:27). Paul states that there is enough truth in nature to condemn man for his rejection of the gospel (Rom. 1:20). This means that man must be a student of both Special and General Revelation. This is where the notion of all truth being God’s truth comes to the fore and we are compelled to offer a course of study to our children that teaches them the truths of Scripture and the world God has placed us in to glorify Him.
How will classical studies make my child a stronger Christian?
At the heart of man’s duties before God and his pursuit of God is the command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and soul. If a classical education is the best means to forming a man’s soul to pursue truth in God, and we believe it is, then one trained in such studies by other strong Christian teachers should have a heart, mind, and soul in love with God and able to serve their fellow man.
Specifically, reading the Western canon and studying the Seven Liberal arts will form young adults ready to engage our culture in Christian conversation about all the great issues of mankind and our specific age. Leadership and change come from people moving within their spheres of influence and persuading others of their view. As we build a generation that thinks well, speaks well, listens well, and does so within the milieu of Christian wisdom and virtue, that generation will move its culture toward that which is true, good, and beautiful.
If classical schooling focuses more on the question than the answer, won’t that lead to ambiguities in my child’s own mind about his faith?
Clarity of thought comes from clear, specific, and full answers to the truly great questions. When the questions are muddled or not really the best ones, just half-baked and falling short of great, then the answers given to them are inevitably falling short as well. Thus a pursuit of truly great questions is the first step toward truly compelling and persuasive answers. How will they know if they do not ask, and how can they know well if they do not first ask well?
What denomination is classicism? Isn’t it mostly Reformed folk who go for this stuff?
It is hard to deny that the modern form of classical Christian education is highly regarded among Reformed churches of a number of denominations, but it is not limited to that area of theology or churches. Classicism is not a theological platform so much as a manner of thinking that includes religious thought. We believe it would be very challenging in the least to be a secular classicist because religion is part and parcel of ancient, classical thought and material. Vigorous orthodoxy has always flourished, historically, among classically trained theologians. Perhaps it is because so many great theologians, including many among the Reformers, were classically trained that this question often arises.
In the end, classical methods of training one to think independently and rightly are abrogated when a school adopts a particular denominational line. If one is to teach children to think by considering all possible explanations for a theological question, but then adopts only one possible answer as the only one that is accepted, Socratic thought runs right out the door and you cannot continue to think about the question, you must simply acquiesce to “the answer.” Our school teaches all the doctrines of ancient orthodoxy well and clearly, but it leaves open the door for discussion on the many things that tend to divide the modern church into so many denominations. In many ways, classical education is a major source of hope for renewed unity in the Body of Christ.