What is Christian Education?
Country School by Winslow Homer
To educate, fundamentally, means to lead out. It’s literally meant to convey the idea of bringing someone from a point of ignorance to a point of informedness. That means that the condition of education is one of transformation, not merely transference. The business of education then, isn’t merely the work of transferring information but actually the transformation of a person: it’s shaping and molding individuals into - what exactly? That’s where the importance of a distinctly Christian education arises.
All education has an agenda. It has a destination for the transformation. It is - by definition - leading somewhere. It may be leading into greater ignorance or it may be leading into a greater denial of reality but it is certainly leading somewhere. Where is your child’s education leading them?
Education isn’t Neutral
It’s fairly typical to regard all education as basically similar. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, right? Christian education just does that with a little more Jesus flavor and a heaping helping of wholesomeness. Maybe there’s less of the gender idealogical nonsense and more biological realism. No Darwinianism and more patriotism. But is that all that makes an education Christian?
Unfortunately, many people would believe that Christian Education just means that you have Bible class, creationism, and chapel - maybe. There are many places of education with Christian in the name that would likely present that as the sum total of a Christian education. But a distinctly biblical Christian education keeps that theme of transformation central. Education is not neutral. A true Christian Education doesn’t treat reading, writing, and arithmetic as something that can be subdivided from Bible. All of reality is shaped by the Word of God. That means that core academics are not only influenced by Scripture, everything about them is dictated by biblical realities. Everything is shaped by God and our application and attention to every subject is therefore directed by His Word. We read because He gave His revelation in a book. We write to become able communicators of His truth. We do math as a testimony to the order and stability of the Universe He created. All of those typical academic classes are subject to Christ just as much as the rest of the world.
1 Corinthians 10:31 sheds a lot of light on this compartmentalizing that we naturally drift towards. There, the Spirit of God through Paul is directing us that whatever we do - down to the minutiae of eating and drinking - ought to be done to the glory of God. That should leave no doubt that the way we learn (not to mention what we’re learning) ought to be done to the glory of God. We don’t do this naturally. Our children don’t naturally glorify God in what they learn or how they learn or what they do with what they learn. This means they need to be led to do it. They need to be educated.
Make no mistake, they will be educated - led - somewhere. Will they be led in the way of Christ? Will they be led towards glorifying God in everything, in their bodies, in their minds, with their lives? Much depends on what kind of education they receive.
