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What is christian education.

• Semi-Technical
• Johannes G. Vos

In this article the author discusses why Christian education is needed, mistaken views on Christian education and the essence of Christian education.

Source: The Outlook , 1980 . 6  pages.

Bright as is the manifestation which God gives both of Himself and His immortal kingdom in the mirror of His works, so great is our stupidity, so dull are we in regard to these bright manifestations, that we derive no benefit from them. For in regard to the fabric and admirable arrangement of the universe, how few of us are there who, in lifting our eyes to the heavens or looking abroad on the various regions of the earth, ever think of the Creator? Do we not rather overlook Him, and sluggishly content ourselves with a view of His works? John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, Chapter V, Section 11

By Christian education is meant education of which the basis and unifying principle is the historic Christian view of God, man and the universe in their mutual relations. This historic Christian philosophy finds its most comprehensive and consistent expres­sion in Calvinism, or the Reformed Faith; therefore the most comprehensive and consistent Christian education must be based on, and unified by, the Re­formed or Calvinistic view of God, man and the uni­verse and their mutual relations.

Why is Christian Education Needed? ⤒ 🔗

Why must there be not merely education, but definitely Christian education? It is not primarily a matter of training up young people for Christian service as ministers and missionaries, or for other specialized vocations in what is called "full time Christian service." That is the task, rather, of Bible institutes and theological seminaries, not of ordi­nary Christian schools and colleges.

First of all, there must be Christian education for God's sake. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ... with all thy mind" (Matthew 22:37). This command implies that God must be recognized, honored and served in every field in which the human intellect operates. Above and prior to all considerations of human and social needs, there stands the primary obligation for man to love the Lord God with all his mind. This cannot be done through an education which regards God as irrelevant; it requires a frank and explicit recognition of the God of the Bible as the first premise of education.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs 1:7

In the second place, Christian education is re­quired to give expression, in the educational field, to the radical difference which exists between the two classes of human beings in this world, namely, the regenerate and the unregenerate. The sin of the human race has had an adverse effect not only on man's spiritual and moral nature, but also on his intellect, his mind. The apostle Paul by inspiration of the Holy Spirit tells us what sin has done to the in­tellect of man. He states that although men knew God,

they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing them­selves to be wise, they became fools... Romans 1:21, 22

Sin, then, has darkened man's mind and has made man foolish, however much he may profess to be wise. Only by the miracle of regeneration or the new birth can this damage to man's intellect be removed.

The Holy Spirit's work in regeneration has an ef­fect not only on man's spiritual and moral nature, but also on his intellect; it opens the eyes of his understanding (Ephesians 1:18). He begins to see facts in the light of God (Psalm 36:9); that is, he begins to see the true meaning of facts. The unregenerate person, on the other hand, continues to maintain that facts can be understood and explained in the light of man; he recognizes no higher category than the human mind, and he will never admit that his mind has been darkened by sin.

This radical divergence or cleavage in the human race results in two radically different, irreconcilable philosophies of life. These two philosophies of life may be broadly termed the secular and the Chris­tian philosophies of life. The former is man-centered and holds that man as he exists today is normal; the latter is God-centered and holds that man as he ex­ists today is abnormal (his life having been blighted by sin). These two philosophies of life are as far apart as east is from west. Between them there is an unbridgeable chasm. There can be no compromise or harmony between them, for in the one God is re­garded as irrelevant, while in the other God is re­garded as all-important.

These two radically different philosophies of life, in turn, must inevitably find expression in two radically different types of education. Unregenerate hu­manity expresses its own inner principle in secular education; regenerate or Christian humanity must express its own inner principle in Christian educa­tion.

The unregenerate person always takes for granted that the God of the Bible does not exist. He may have some idea of a reduced, limited, finite God; but he takes for granted that the God of the Bible and of historic Christianity is not real. He also assumes that man and the universe are self-explanatory — that they can be understood without reference to the God of the Bible. The Christian, on the other hand, must always take for granted that the God of the Bible does exist, and that He is ab­solutely meaningful for every fact in the universe.

The secular and Christian philosophies of life can­not be harmonized; both in their starting points and in their conclusions, they are irreconcilable. The one starts with man and the universe, and ends with man and the universe misunderstood; the other starts with the God of the Bible, and attains a gen­uine insight into the true meaning of reality. There is no area of life in which the difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate does not count. The three great doctrines of God, Creation and Providence must be accepted as the major premise of all study by the regenerate; these doctrines are rejected or regarded as irrelevant by the un­regenerate.

There can be no real neutrality as to these three doctrines. The unregenerate person walks around in a dream world. He thinks that facts exist of them­selves, and can be adequately explained by human reason alone, without reference to the God of the Bi­ble. The Christian, on the other hand, knows that facts do not exist of themselves, and that they can­not be adequately explained on the basis of human reason alone. The Christian does not believe in what has been called the "just-there-ness" of facts. They are created facts, not self-existent facts; therefore they can be really understood only by assuming the doctrines of God, Creation and Providence. God is the reason why facts exist; Creation is the source whence facts exist; Providence is the manner how facts exist.

The unregenerate person also assumes that the human mind is an uncreated mind which exists of it­self and is competent to be the absolute and final in­terpreter of facts. The regenerate person, on the other hand, realizes that the human mind does not exist of itself; it is a created mind and is not compe­tent to be the absolute and final interpreter of facts. The regenerate person recognizes that he is dependent on divine revelation for the ultimate interpre­tation of the meaning of the facts.

Education, then, must be either on a secular, non-Christian basis, or on a Christian, God-centered basis. To obscure this distinction amounts virtually to abandoning the field non-Christian philosophy of life. For non-Christian philosophy of life is uncritically held — even automatically and unconsciously held — by the great majority of the human race.

The Christian philosophy of life, on the other hand, requires a revolution in a person's thinking — a revolution resulting from the miracle of the new birth. This comes only by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in the deep personality of a human being. The tragedy is that even many who no doubt are born-again Christians fail to see the implications of Christianity for life as a whole, and continue to look at man and the universe (including the field of education) from the point of view of the secular or non-Christian philosophy of life. Many Christians, it would seem, have had their souls saved, but their minds remain tangled in the non-Christian view of life.

Mistaken View of Christian Education ← ⤒ 🔗

1. christian education does not mean educa­tion limited to the field of religion. ← ↰ ⤒ 🔗.

The idea that Christian education means education limited to the field of religion is held by many people, but it is too narrow an idea of Christian education. Such people seem to think that God is connected only with the salvation of people's souls, and has nothing to do with the world and life as a whole.

We must not limit Christian education to religion. For if we do that we will fail to glorify God in all of life and knowledge. There must be a Christian view of history and economics and politics and physics, as well as a Christian view of salvation and the reli­gious life. God is God everywhere, or He is God nowhere.

2. Nor does Christian education mean secular education with some religious features externally added. ← ↰ ⤒ 🔗

This is a very common misconception of Christian education, even among earnest Christian people. The common idea of a Christian college, for example, is that a Christian college is just like any other college so far as the study of mathematics, chemistry or English literature is concerned, but that in addition to the regular curriculum the Christian college will have courses in Bible study, daily chapel services, seasons of evangelism, a religious emphasis week, prayer groups, Christian service or­ganizations, and so forth.

These specifically religious features are certainly of greet value and importance, but they do not of themselves make an educational institution truly Christian, any more than merely attending church and carrying a pocket Testament makes a man a Christian. By Christian education we do not mean secular education with Christian features added on externally; Christian education means education that is Christian in its essence or inner character all along the line, not only in the chapel and Bible class­room, but in every classroom and every laboratory, as well as in the life and thinking of every teacher.

The Essence of Christian Education ← ⤒ 🔗

In order to show how radically Christian educa­tion differs from that education which proceeds from the non-Christian philosophy of life, let us con­sider the essence of Christian education with re­spect to its source, its standard and its purpose.

1. The Source of Christian Education ← ↰ ⤒ 🔗

The source of Christian education is not society as such, but Christian people, people to whom God means everything. Society being predominantly unregen­erate and having a non-Christian philosophy of life, cannot produce truly Christian education. A stream cannot rise any higher than its source. Education which originates from the impulse of society, or the public in general, will not consent to take the God of the Bible seriously. It will not agree to the assump­tions of God, Creation and Providence on which gen­uine Christian education must be based. For "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually dis­cerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Nor will education which originates from society as such assent to the truth of the damage done by sin to the human intellect, and the resultant need for regeneration, the recognition of which is absolutely basic to any truly Christian view of education. We must conclude, therefore, that the source of Chris­tian education must be Christian people — the regenerate portion of society, who have received the new life-principle of regeneration by the special work of the Holy Spirit in their personality.

2. The Standard of Christian Education ← ↰ ⤒ 🔗

A stan­dard is a recognized authority by which something is measured, regulated or directed. The non-Christian philosophy of life finds this standard in society. It speaks of the needs of society, social pressure, social demand, and the like, as the stan­dard by which the character and content of educa­tion shall be determined.

The true standard, on the other hand, is the Bible as the revelation of the mind and the will of God. This is the standard recognized by the Christian philosophy of life. To affirm that the true standard of education is the Bible as the revelation of the mind will of God, does not, of course, mean that the Bible is to be regarded as a textbook on chemis­try, mathematics or psychology. But it does mean that the relevant principles of the Bible are norm­ative for every field of study. The Bible has a rela­tionship to every field of life and knowledge, just because God is the real source of all life and knowl­edge.

The facts of science must never be treated as ex­isting of themselves "in the nature of things;" they must always be regarded as created facts, existing only by the creation and providence of the God of the Bible. The laws of nature must never be re­garded as existing of themselves "in the nature of things;" they must always be regarded as created laws, existing by the creation of God and functioning by the providence of God. The human mind must never be regarded as competent to be the absolute and ultimate interpreter of facts; it must always be recognized that in the end it is God who determines what facts mean and how they are related to each other.

God must be the major premise of every textbook. God must be the great assumption in every class­room. God must be the Person whose handiwork is investigated in every laboratory. This means, of course, not some vague or distorted idea of God, but the living and true God, the God of the Bible. "In the beginning God" must be the watchword of all truly Christian education. In textbook, classroom and lab­oratory the student will learn to think God's thoughts after Him. Unlike the student in a non-Christian institution, he will learn that human thought is never really creative in the strict sense, but always derived from the prior thought of God — that human "creative" thought is really the unfold­ing, in man's intellect, of God's eternal decree by which He has, from all eternity, foreordained all that comes to pass in time. What is new to the mind of man is as old as eternity to the mind of God.

This function of the Bible as the standard for truly Christian education further implies two things:

Education is more than mere training; it is essen­tially a matter of enabling the student to attain a grasp of the real meaning of everything — the real meaning of God, man and the universe.

Truly Christian education will not be a miscellaneous as­sortment or hodgepodge of diverse principles and viewpoints, as non-Christian education usually is, but will have a single unifying principle, namely, that the God of the Bible is the sovereign, active Lord over all reality.

To this unifying principle, everything will be re­lated. Around this principle, everything will be arranged. The result of this unifying principle will be that the students will not merely acquire a mass of miscellaneous information and insights into various detailed fields, but will gain a consistent, unified view of God, man and the universe, a true and valid philosophy of life — a real insight into what every­thing is really about.

Secular education is continually groping around for such a unifying principle, but is never able to at­tain one; truly Christian education has the only real­ly valid unifying principle; while its students may sometimes not acquire as much detailed information as those receiving secular education, at least they will know what it is all about. They will come to real­ize that it is only in the light of God that man can really see light (Psalm 36:9); that it is only when re­lated to the God of the Bible that anything really means anything. As a well-known Christian philos­opher has said, "He who has physics without God will finally have religion without God." If God is not God in the laboratory, then He is not really God in the Church, nor anywhere.

3.  The Purpose of Christian Education ← ↰ ⤒ 🔗

The purpose of the Christian education is the glory of God, and the true welfare of man in subordination to the glory of God. Thus its purpose transcends human society; it is something above and beyond the human race. Only when the glory of God is made the great aim can the true welfare and happiness of man be attained. Where merely human aims such as "social welfare" or "the development of the resources of personality" are substituted for the glory of God, human benefit and happiness will prove illusory.

This transcendent purpose of glorifying God means that the utilitarian demands of society for training in skills by which to earn a living will never be allowed to monopolize the character and content of the curriculum of a truly Christian college or uni­versity. The emphasis will always be on giving the student a valid, God-centered view of life as a whole. Courses of a utilitarian character may properly be included, of course. But a truly Christian college or university will not allow courses on such subjects as salesmanship, bookkeeping and radio broadcasting to crowd out history, philosophy, literature, pure science and religion. In other words, the main em­phasis will always be on education rather than on training; the attainment of a unified view of life will be given priority over the acquisition of practical skills.

The purpose of Christian education thus consists in the mandate to glorify God in every sphere of life; every thought is to be brought into captivity to Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). This means consciously and intentionally to glorify God in every sphere of life, not merely to glorify God unconsciously and in­voluntarily as a bird or a blade of grass glorifies God. We are to aim at glorifying God in education, as in all other matters. This means that the God of the Bible must be frankly and explicitly recognized as the major premise and end of every educational function.

The Religious Features of Christian Education ← ⤒ 🔗

Religious features such as Bible study and chapel exercises do not of themselves make education truly Christian. However they are essential to truly Christian education and they are of very great importance.

Religious Features must be Integrated ← ↰ ⤒ 🔗

In truly Christian education the religious features will be related to the rest of the curriculum and life of the institution not in an external but in an organic way. That is, they will not be merely something ex­tra tacked on, but will be the crowning expression of the entire curriculum and life of the institution. In the history classroom and the chemical laboratory the student will learn to think God's thoughts after Him — those thoughts of God which have consti­tuted history and chemistry what they are. In the Bible classroom the student will learn to think the same God's thoughts after Him, as those thoughts are revealed in His Word, the Bible. Here he will learn the relevancy of God's Truth for his own per­sonal life, as well as for the human race and the world of nature. In the chapel services the student will worship the same God whose thoughts have been unfolded to him in the classroom and the laboratory.

Religious Features must be Orthodox ← ↰ ⤒ 🔗

The religious features of truly Christian educa­tion must always be orthodox. That is, they must be in harmony with the truth of God. In many tradi­tionally Christian colleges today the teaching of the Bible has moved so far from orthodoxy that it is ac­tually worse than useless; it is downright harmful, and would better be omitted altogether. Better not teach young people the Bible at all, than to teach them that the Bible is full of contradictions, forg­eries and errors, a collection of ancient myths and legends, and so forth. Better leave the Bible out en­tirely than to teach it in the distorted form required by a non-Christian, evolutionary philosophy.

Orthodoxy, of course, implies a standard of ortho­doxy. This is properly the standard held as valid by the denomination or group that controls the institu­tion. This does not necessarily imply that all faculty members must be members of a particular denomi­nation, but it does imply that the confessional stan­dards of the denomination are to be regarded as nor­mative in determining what is orthodox in religious teaching, worship and service in a Christian college or university.

Faculty must be Active Christians ← ⤒ 🔗

It should be needless to observe that what has been said in this article should not be regarded as a body of abstract ideas. For education to be truly Christian, these ideas must be embodied in the living personalities of teachers and students. The teachers, especially, should be living examples of what real Christian education means. No stream rises higher than its source, and it is not to be ex­pected that an educational institution will rise higher than the life and loyalty manifested by its faculty and administration. Every teacher and ad­ministrative officer of a Christian college or university should be, not merely a professing Christian or church member, but a spiritual, active Christian, a person to whom Christ is the object of faith and to whom the Triune God is all-important.

The writer once knew a medical missionary in Korea who had an immense influence. This doctor was the head of a hospital with a staff of doctors and nurses. Besides these there were other employees, including a Korean mechanic-chauffeur for the doctor's car and an old man who opened and closed the compound gate. The missionary doctor insisted that every person employed by the hospital, from the medical and nursing staff down to the chauffeur and gateman, must be a serious, active Christian, able to witness for Christ whenever opportunity might offer. The influence of this hospital was tremendous. Only eternity will tell the whole story. But what might not be accomplished by the Christian colleges of America and the world if their teaching and administrative staffs were composed entirely of people whose great aim in life is to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness? What might not be accomplished if every teacher, of whatever department or subject, were convinced that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge? And what establishment and stability in the faith might not be produced in the students if every teacher could be depended upon to give any student faithful, sympathetic counsel based upon the Christian view of life?

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The purpose of the  Christian Education Journal  is to strengthen the conception and practice of Christian education in church and parachurch settings through:

• Encouraging reflection on the foundations of Christian education and implications for ministry practice • Exploring the integration and application of social science theory and research to educational ministry concerns • Fostering improved teaching in the field of Christian education at colleges and seminaries, equipping people for leadership in this field • Promoting the assessment of our changing cultural context and of contemporary educational ministry needs, models, and trends • Providing reviews of new books in the field of Christian education and other related disciplines that impact educational ministry This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) .

The purpose of the  Christian Education Journal  is to strengthen the conception and practice of Christian education in church and parachurch settings through:

• Encouraging reflection on the foundations of Christian education and implications for ministry practice • Exploring the integration and application of social science theory and research to educational ministry concerns • Fostering improved teaching in the field of Christian education at colleges and seminaries, equipping people for leadership in this field • Promoting the assessment of our changing cultural context and of contemporary educational ministry needs, models, and trends • Providing reviews of new books in the field of Christian education and other related disciplines that impact educational ministry

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The Exponential Growth of Classical Christian Education

More By Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra

On a Monday morning 17 years ago, Russ Gregg quit his job because of a sermon he’d heard the day before about “venturing something for God that’s a little bit crazy.”

So he left his position as development director for a Christian school in one of Minneapolis’s wealthiest suburbs in order to launch a classical Christian school in one of the city’s  poorest , most  violent  neighborhoods.

Without teachers, parents, a building, or financial support, Gregg was determined to love his neighbors as he loved himself. So he sought to give them the best education he could think of—a school like the one his own kids attended.

Seventeen years later, Hope Academy has grown from 35 students in a church basement to 500 students in a seven-story school building. Among Hope’s five classes to date, 99 percent of students have graduated. In fact, almost every graduate (95 percent) was accepted at two- or four-year colleges, with a few receiving full-ride scholarships to private liberal arts colleges.

“This is in a community where half of my neighbors aren’t even graduating from high school,” Gregg said. “The ones who do graduate read at an eighth-grade level.”

Even better, Gregg has also seen “promising fruit” among students in their desire to follow Christ.

The astonishing growth and success of Hope mirrors the classical Christian education movement that’s been sprouting up across the country for the past 25 years. In the fall of 1993, there were 10 such schools in the United States. By 2003, there were 153.

Today, more than 251 schools are members of the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS), and they educate more than 43,000 students a year. But the total number of students receiving a classical Christian education each year is both higher and harder to calculate, since it includes both non-ACCS member schools and home schools.

Nonetheless, experts place the number of somewhere between 200,000 to 300,000 students nationwide.

Going Back to Go Forward

While calling education “classical” is new, the practice is as old as Plato and Socrates.

“What we call ‘classical education’ was before the late 1800s simply ‘education,’” said Christopher Perrin, a national leader in the classical education movement and founder and CEO of Classical Academic Press . “The word ‘classical’ as an adjective has become dominant now because we’re describing its renewal.”

In the late 1800s, classical education was “calcifying,” Perrin said. While there were some good schools, there was also “some severity and some austerity and some examples that weren’t great.”

At the time, many factors prompted the invention and rise of progressive modern education. And in the face of the industrial revolution, mass immigration, the scientific revolution, and the advent of social sciences, classical education simply couldn’t hold its own.

Early in the 20th century, influential educational reformer John Dewey  argued  against objective truth. He believed education should be solely pragmatic and focused on helping humans adapt to their environment. Dewey’s goal instead was to equip individuals for particular spheres of usefulness: business, medicine, housework, or factories.

“What it boils down to is that a certain group of people are educated for factories, and another group to rule, but everybody is going to be educated for practical reasons,” said Andrew Kern, who founded the Circe Institute in 2001 as a center for independent research on classical education.

This approach to education quickly became popular, so much so that progressive education has dominated the landscape in the United States since the 1920s, and until lately, classical education was nearly extinguished.

“The questions in education went from ‘What kind of citizen do we want?’ to ‘What do they need to be able to do, and how can we prepare them for that?’” said Keith Nix, who heads the Veritas School in Richmond, Virginia. Nix also sits on the boards for ACCS and the Society of Classical Learning (SCL).

“Not only did we start to lose subjects like Latin, but we also started thinking differently about subjects like mathematics. If we think math is man-made, the question is ‘What do I need it for?’ rather than ‘What is true and beautiful and good about math that I need to pursue?’”

“It’s not ‘What good will it do me?’ but ‘How do I respond to this thing God gave me, and in my pursuit of it what kind of human being am I becoming?’”

Finding the Lost Tools

As Western education drifted from traditional education, author Dorothy Sayers sounded the alarm in her 1947  essay  “The Lost Tools of Learning.” She wrote,

The combined folly of a civilization that has forgotten its own roots is forcing [the teachers] to shore up the tottering weight of an educational structure that is built upon sand. They are doing for their pupils the work which the pupils themselves ought to do. For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.

‘For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.’ — Dorothy Sayers

In his book  The Abolition of Man , C. S. Lewis similarly warned that the modern education system was going to be a problem:

For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.

Then, in the early 1980s, three classical schools independently sprouted at the same time in Idaho, Indiana, and Kansas.

“If you were to define the three places classical education was least likely to be heard of, this would be it,” said ACCS president David Goodwin.

Logos School in Moscow, Idaho, sparked the book  Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning . The book, which referenced Sayers’s essay, launched “about 100 schools in five years,” Goodwin said. 

Across the country, classical schools reinstated history classes that taught chronologically from creation to the modern era. In the modern educational schema, Dewey had traded out history for social studies. These new classical schools also taught children to read based on phonics instead of whole language; they dusted off classic literature and Latin flashcards, implemented Socratic discussion and school uniforms. They taught the fruits of the Spirit and sought to shape the souls of children so they would in time seek and enjoy God.

Throughout the decades, those elements hadn’t completely disappeared, Perrin said, but they only showed up in pieces.

“Now we’re trying to take all the pearls and put them on a string again,” he said. “It’s like putting together a puzzle having lost the box top.”

But by the 2000s, led by groups like the ACCS, the SCL, and the Circe Institute, a renewed classical education movement began to take shape. This movement centered on three biblical ideas: truth, goodness, and beauty.

Administrators and teachers first sought to reassemble the curriculum that had been used for centuries. This curriculum teaches in what’s called the trivium, because it’s tailored to three stages of child development.

The first stage is grammar school (grades 1–4), in which teachers focus on telling stories, and students memorize math facts, history timelines, and Bible verses.

The second stage is logic school (grades 5–8), in which teachers cover the same ground, but in greater depth and with an eye to teaching logic and helping students test and debate what they’re learning.

The third stage is rhetoric school (grades 9–12), in which students dig into texts more deeply, honing their ability to write and speak about truths they’ve learned and tested.

But classical schools don’t fulfill their purpose if they’re only teaching students truth. They also seek to cultivate goodness in students’ lives.

“One of the number one values of Hope Academy is . . . to cultivate virtues—the fruits of the Spirit,” Gregg said. “What do we do if we have a student bullying another student? There’s good news from the gospel both for the bully and also the one being bullied that could cause repentence and bring about reconciliation.”

‘What kind of citizen and human being and Christian will they be at age 30? 40? 60? What kind of old men do we want these fifth graders to be?’ — Keith Nix

He said Hope encourages high parental involvement, which can be hard in the inner-city.

“Many schools have decided it’s hopeless to engage the families,” Gregg said, “but we have bucked against that trend and gone to some extraordinary lengths to engage and involve parents.”

Every year teachers visit the home of each child in their class. Parents are required to come to school two Saturdays a year, where they attend workshops on how to support their child’s education. Hope also provides parental report cards to let them know how they’re doing.

“In our neighborhood, about 15 percent of parents go to parent-teacher conferences,” Gregg said. “Here it’s 97 percent on the first day, and the other 3 percent get it done the next week.”

That’s because Hope asks them to keep their children home until the conference is rescheduled.

“New families don’t believe we’ll follow through, but we do,” he said. “We find that all of us need accountability.”

Leaning on parents for involvement fosters a community of love, something that prospective parents find more attractive than academic strength, Gregg said.

“Being a college prep school is too small of a goal,” Nix said. “When we come together and talk about the kind of schools we’re building, we return to the question ‘What kind of citizen and human being and Christian will they be at age 30? 40? 60? What kind of old men do we want these fifth graders to be?’”

Those questions change everything, Nix said.

“One way the Devil can get in is to get us too focused on something that is good but not best,” Perrin said. “If we focus on the good of curriculum and neglect Christian love, we’ll destroy everything, because we’ll have made the secondary thing primary.”

“In the early years, the focus was on the truth of the curriculum, then on community,” Perrin said. “In the last five to seven years, the focus has been on the discovery of beauty.”

Instead of fluorescent lights, plastic posters, and jumbled rooms, classical educators are wondering how they can make the physical school buildings more beautiful.

They’re also making some of their activities beautiful. Some schools gather their students in the halls in the morning or afternoon to sing a hymn, a cappella, as a blessing on their day. Others are busy beautifying their lunch periods, setting round tables with real tablecloths and playing classical music.

Homeschools

But these schools aren’t the whole story. Classical Christian education is also trending in homeschools.

Perrin said most homeschools choose “eclectic” curriculums. But recently, many have turned to classical education curriculums.

One homeschool program, Classical Conversations, serves more than 100,000 students. And Susan Wise Bauer’s  The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home , now in its fourth edition, has sold more than 100,000 copies since its publication in 1999.

One of the biggest challenges has been staffing all these new classical schools. The number of teachers who have received a classical education themselves, even at this point, is minimal.

As more classically educated students show up on campuses across the country, colleges are feeling the pressure to provide training suitable for them, Kern said.

New Saint Andrews, a college founded amid this classical renewal,  began  in 1994 with four students from a nearby church in Idaho. Now it has almost 200 graduate and undergraduate students.

Other colleges are beginning to come online, Perrin said. Grove City College has added a  minor  in classical studies. Hillsdale College has also added a  minor  to prepare teachers to teach classically. Baylor University’s “ Great Texts ” program offers good preparation for classical Christian teachers, as does Houston Baptist University’s  master of liberal arts program .

For More Than the Elite

Another challenge has been the stereotype that classical education is for wealthy children with high IQs. To be fair, this assumption has a whiff of truth to it. Classically educated children score higher on standardized tests, and private education by nature costs more than public. ACCS schools average an annual price tag of $7,000.

But classical educators point to the success of Gregg’s Hope Academy as proof that classical education isn’t just for the privileged elite. Three-quarters of the students are from low-income families; 80 percent are ethnic minorities.

Three-quarters of the students at Hope Academy are from low-income families; 80 percent are ethnic minorities.

What’s more, these students are accomplishing it on only $9,000 a year—a relative bargain compared to the $12,000 a year Minnesota spends on its public school students, and the $21,000 spent on Minneapolis private school students.

Of course, in a school where the median household income is less than $28,000 a year, $9,000 remains far too high a price to pay. That’s why all of Gregg’s students are on a scholarship model, he said. Parents pay what they can afford on a  sliding scale ; for many, it works out to around $600 a year, and the rest of the cost is picked up by sponsors.

These 500 students require a lot of sponsors, especially with the school’s excellent 88 percent retention rate.

“Every year, we need to find 40 to 50 more partners who say, ‘I really do want to change the inner city in the most powerful way possible by giving this child a great, God-centered education,’” Gregg said.

Looking to the Future

Hope’s seven-story building used to be a public school, but it closed down after failing to achieve its academic objectives.

Today, Gregg is raising $7 million dollars to add to the building: 10 more classrooms, a second gym, and an expanded cafeteria. He wants to raise enrollment from 500 to 700 students in the next five years.

At the same time, he’s raising $3 million to plant 10 Hope Academy schools around the country, the first of which will launch next fall in Houston’s Fifth Ward.

Gregg is not without his fair share of worries, chief among them religious freedom and students who show up far behind. But all things considered, he’s optimistic.

“Giving students the tools to become lifelong learners—that’s the kind of education I want for my neighbors.”

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra is senior writer and faith-and-work editor for The Gospel Coalition. She is also the coauthor of Gospelbound: Living with Resolute Hope in an Anxious Age and editor of Social Sanity in an Insta World . Before that, she wrote for Christianity Today , homeschooled her children, freelanced for a local daily paper, and taught at Trinity Christian College. She earned a BA in English and communication from Dordt University and an MSJ from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She lives with her husband and two sons in Kansas City, Missouri, where they belong to New City Church . You can reach her at [email protected] .

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Liberty's jonathan falwell warns public schools pushing agenda that will 'destroy' young people (part 2).

Read part 1 of Falwell's interview with The Christian Post here .

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Jonathan Falwell, who serves as chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, has warned that ideological shifts and governmental pressure are increasingly threatening the quality of education in the United States and shared how Christian parents can fight back.

“The Department of Education, other agencies, are constantly pressuring schools, both Christian and secular schools, that if they're going to receive any assistance or financial aid from the government, that those schools are going to have to change what they do and change how they do it,” Falwell told The Christian Post. 

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“For a lot of smaller schools, whether Christian or not, that’s a big pressure point because students come and we know that there's a huge student loan crisis in our country today, students are having to use that because of the escalating costs of the academic experience. That’s the way the government puts pressure on schools to give into a narrative and a worldview that would be counter to what followers of Christ have.”

This pressure forces some institutions to abandon their foundational principles, leading to a secular shift in even traditionally Christian colleges, Falwell said, citing examples like Harvard and Yale, which started as schools to train Christian ministers but have since drifted from their origins.

“We've got to make sure that we don't let that happen, not just to Liberty, but to the Christian schools that are in our country today, all of which are very, very important,” he said. “Whether small or large, every single one of them plays a critical role in training up young people, both from Christian families and secular families, to make a positive impact and difference in our society and our culture. We must always focus on truth and not let the government or any other outside entity push that school away from what they believe in.”

Falwell, who also serves as the senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, noted the growing need for alternatives to public education, as school districts and states are incorporating curriculums “that truly are going to destroy the young people of our nation.”

“Kids are not being taught the basics and the foundational truths of academics, but rather, they're being infused, their lives are being infected, by these kinds of ideologies that flow completely away from the truth of the Bible,” he said. 

Liberty University was founded by Falwell’s father, Jerry Falwell Sr., in 1971. Falwell, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist and conservative activist, wanted to create a comprehensive Christian university that would offer rigorous academics while nurturing students' spiritual growth through a biblical worldview, according to his son.

Today, Liberty University stands as the largest Christian university in the United States, with over 100,000 students enrolled in both on-campus and online programs.

“My dad always said, and we continue to make sure, that if it’s Christian, it ought to be better; excellence in academics, excellence in facilities, excellence in athletics, all of the things so that not one Christian student, not one young person would ever have to sacrifice to go to a Christian school, sacrifice the experience of being able to get the best, but they get the best from a Christian worldview,” he said.

Pointing to the example of Liberty, Falwell advocated for Christian schools and homeschool co-ops to offer an alternative to secular public education.

“My prayer is that there are churches all across the country that will start, as they did back in the '60s and '70s, Christian schools in their churches,” Falwell said.

“Many church buildings are full on a Sunday, on a Wednesday, maybe, but throughout the week, they're not as full, and I would love to see schools, whether it's a homeschool co-op or whether it's a church-sponsored-school, where we can actually prepare students and provide an alternative to some of the craziness that is taking place in the public schools.”

Falwell’s comments come at a time when Americans across the political spectrum, and especially conservatives , have lost faith in higher education, according to a 2023 Gallup poll.

In recent weeks, the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has heightened tensions on some elite college campuses throughout the U.S., notably Columbia, Yale and Cornell. 

Many pro-Palestinian protesters are calling for their colleges to divest from Israel, while some Jewish students and elected officials say the protests are antisemitic and that they're being barred from walking on campus and fear for their safety. Hundreds of students and faculty have been arrested nationwide, and some violent incidents have been reported.

In an interview with CP, Coral Ridge Ministries CEO Robert J. Pacienza, whose organization recently released a documentary highlighting how public schools are pushing "left-wing politics" in the classroom, warned that parents and the church have "lost the vision for the family."

He said family was the first institution in the Bible and that God's design for a "flourishing society is built around healthy families." 

"Parents have lost the vision and have abdicated their responsibility to disciple their children and to shepherd their souls," the senior pastor said, urging parents to teach their children how to be Christians in private and public. 

"I think there are some practical ways in which Christian parents can say, 'No, it really begins with me. It's not just shaking my fist at the culture, shaking a fist at Washington, D.C., and shaking a fist at secularism,'" Pacienza said.

"It's saying, what can I do as a parent to model this for my children and actually practice what we preach and take more ownership of the discipleship and the shepherding of my child?"

Pacienza said pastors and churches "need to come alongside parents to make them aware of what's going on in the culture, but also give parents the proper tools and the proper resources to develop their children with a biblical worldview. So that when they graduate from high school, and they leave home, and they go on to these secular college campuses, and they go out into the world, instead of them walking away from the faith, they are standing firm for the faith because they have been grounded and rooted in the firm foundation of God's Word so that they not only know the Scripture, but they know how to apply it to all of life." 

Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]

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As States Resist Federal Gender Rules, Schools Are Caught in the Middle

Conservative state governments are forbidding school districts from doing what the Department of Education says they must, under new Title IX regulations on students’ gender identity.

By Amy Harmon

New civil rights regulations released last month by the Biden administration presented school districts across the nation with a clear choice: Either adopt policies that allow transgender students to use the bathrooms, wear the uniforms and be called by the pronouns that correspond with their gender identity, or risk losing federal funding.

But several Republican-led states have responded with an equally clear message for their schools: Steer clear of such policies.

The clashing state and federal directives have put school officials in a difficult spot, education officials said. School boards may face federal investigations, litigation from parents, threats of a state takeover or lost funding.

“No matter which way a school district goes, they’re going to possibly draw a lawsuit from someone in disagreement, whether that’s a federal regulator or a private person who doesn’t agree with how the district handled it,” said Sonja Trainor, managing director for school law at the National School Boards Association. “A lot of schools are going to be in no man’s land.”

The dispute centers on Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. The new regulations from the Biden administration interpret “discrimination on the basis of sex” to include discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes and gender identity. The regulations did not address whether transgender students should be able to play on school sports teams corresponding to their gender identity. A second rule on that question is expected later.

“These regulations make it crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, told reporters when the new regulations were announced in April.

But in four separate lawsuits, filed in federal courts in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas and Kentucky, attorneys general in more than a dozen states are trying to block the regulations from going to effect in August as planned.

And lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization, have filed a challenge on behalf of the Rapides Parish School Board in Louisiana.

“We would not want to put ourselves in a position where the federal government would take funding away because we follow the original purpose of Title IX,” Jeff Powell, the district superintendent, said in a statement. “We want students in our district to have privacy and safety when they access sex-specific facilities.”

Most school districts across the country receive federal funds for special education programs, and schools serving high concentrations of low-income families get federal support. But they get much more funding from state governments and, in some cases, local property taxes. Most school boards are directly answerable to their states.

“Schools are trying to ensure that kids are safe and that they have access to educational services,” said Francisco M. Negron Jr., founder of K12 Counsel, a school law advocacy and policy firm. “When there’s inconsistency in the law, it’s unsettling and it’s distracting.”

Several Republican-led states have passed laws that forbid transgender students to use school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. Gov. Brad Little of Idaho signed a bill last month that bars teachers from referring to a student by a name or pronoun that does not align with the student’s birth sex without parental consent.

Education officials in at least five states — Oklahoma, Florida , Louisiana , Montana and South Carolina — have urged school boards to maintain policies that “recognize the distinction between sex and gender identity,” as Elsie Arntzen, Montana’s superintendent of public instruction, put it in her letter to school leaders in the state.

For now, the new federal regulations supersede any state law or directive from a state official on the issue. But one or more federal judges, legal experts said, could issue an order blocking the regulations from taking effect locally or nationally while the lawsuits make their way through the courts. And the issue may ultimately reach the Supreme Court, which has so far declined to weigh in on how Title IX should be interpreted with regard to gender identity.

The new regulations are premised in part on the Biden administration’s interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark 2020 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that discrimination based on transgender status necessarily entails treating individuals differently because of their sex.

But in the lawsuits, Republican-led states argue that the Department of Education exceeded its authority by issuing regulations that expand the definition of what constitutes sex discrimination. They point out that the Bostock decision was about workplace discrimination, and that Title IX includes specific exceptions for separating the sexes in certain educational situations, like sports teams. That shows, they argue, that Title IX was intended to recognize biological differences between males and females, not to address gender identity.

And some Republican governors are not waiting for the courts to act.

“I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore your illegal dictate,” Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a letter to President Biden this week.

And Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas signed an executive order on Thursday stating that schools in her state would continue to enforce restrictions on which bathrooms and pronouns transgender students are allowed to use.

“My message to Joe Biden and the federal government,” Ms. Sanders said at a news conference, “is we will not comply.”

Amy Harmon covers how shifting conceptions of gender affect everyday life in the United States. More about Amy Harmon

House passes antisemitism bill with broad bipartisan support amid campus arrests

The House passed a bipartisan bill Wednesday to combat antisemitism as pro-Palestinian protests roil colleges across the U.S.

The measure passed 320-91. Twenty-one Republicans and 70 Democrats voted against it.

The bill, titled the Antisemitism Awareness Act , would mandate that the Education Department adopt the broad definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group, to enforce anti-discrimination laws.

The international group defines antisemitism as a "certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews." The group adds that "rhetorical and physical manifestations" of antisemitism include such things as calling for the killing or harming of Jews or holding Jews collectively responsible for actions taken by Israel.

The bill's prospects in the Senate are unclear.

Asked whether the Senate would take up the legislation, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters earlier Wednesday that "we haven't seen what the House is sending us yet."

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., introduced the bipartisan legislation, which received backing from Democratic moderates who are supporters of Israel amid the country’s war with Hamas.

“In every generation, the Jewish people have been scapegoated, harassed, evicted from their homeland and murdered,” Lawler said in a floor speech before the vote.

"The Jewish people need our support now," he said. "They need action now."

Republicans are seeking to launch investigations into antisemitism on college campuses in response to the pro-Palestinian protests. The current version of the legislation was introduced in late October after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel but not brought to the floor until this week.

“When I spoke at Columbia last week, I told administrators that we need deeds, not words, to protect Jewish students,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., a co-author of the legislation, said in a statement Wednesday. “This bill is a critical step to take the action we so desperately need to stand against hate.”

In a letter Monday to House Speaker Mike Johnson , R-La., Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote that “there is nothing scheduled on the floor this week that would accomplish the concrete, thoughtful strategies outlined by the Biden administration” to combat antisemitism.

Jeffries had demanded a vote on the bipartisan Countering Antisemitism Act , which aims to address concerns about rising antisemitism through the appointment of a new adviser to the president who would be dedicated to implementing its coordinated strategy to counter antisemitism.

“The effort to crush antisemitism and hatred in any form is not a Democratic or Republican issue,” Jeffries wrote. “It’s an American issue that must be addressed in a bipartisan manner with the fierce urgency of now.”

Lawler's bill faced opposition from some progressive and far-right lawmakers, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, which called the bill's definition of antisemitism "overbroad."

"Speech that is critical of Israel or any other government cannot, alone, constitute harassment," ACLU leaders wrote in a letter last week urging lawmakers to oppose the measure.

The letter pointed in part to an example of antisemitism included in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition, which says antisemitism could include "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, voted against the bill after having told reporters Tuesday that Republicans were weaponizing antisemitism.

“We all have to continue to speak out against antisemitism and be clear that we don’t like — we will not tolerate antisemitism any more than we tolerate Islamophobia or any of the other hatreds and discriminations that are out there,” she said.

Jayapal also argued that the bill “has a definition that is so broad” that many Jewish groups do not support it.

“So why would you do that? Except if you want to weaponize antisemitism and you want to use it as a political ploy,” she said. “Let’s remember that many of these Republicans didn’t say a word when Donald Trump and others in Charlottesville, other places, were saying truly antisemitic things.”

Trump, as president, sparked a backlash when he suggested that "many sides" were to blame for the deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, declining to single out white nationalists.

Separately, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said that the definition was so broad that it would threaten constitutionally protected free speech. He, too, voted against the bill.

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., said in a statement after she voted against it that while she has "experienced antisemitism all my life," the bill "would stifle First Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly."

Jacobs also said she does not believe that anti-Zionism is "inherently antisemitism," saying that "conflating free speech and hate crimes will not make Jewish students any safer."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., voted against the bill because of a disagreement with an example of antisemitism listed in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition, which referred to using "symbols and images" such as "claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel" to describe Israel or Israelis.

Greene argued on X that the bill "could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the gospel that says Jesus was handed over" for crucifixion with involvement of some Jewish authorities, including Herod.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., voted against the bill for similar reasons, pointing to the same example of antisemitism, which many Jews consider harmful.

"The Bible is clear," he wrote on X . "There is no myth or controversy around this."

Activists working to counter antisemitism have pointed out that Jews have been scapegoated throughout history for events including the crucifixion of Jesus and that such claims have been used to justify violence against Jews.

Summer Concepcion is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Megan Lebowitz is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Rebecca is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the House.