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Homeschooling Language Arts from a Biblical Worldview

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letters

Thinking back to when I chose a curriculum for homeschooling language arts from a biblical worldview, I remember what I wanted my three young sons to learn most of all. Nothing was more important than them knowing the truth of the Bible—that God loves them, and that the greatest joy and purpose in life come from living in relationship with the God of the universe.

Of course teaching my boys these truths began way before the days of homeschooling. My husband and I began sharing a biblical worldview with our boys at home as we read our Bibles, prayed at bedtimes, explored the world God made, and celebrated holidays. Our church supported us as the kids learned in Sunday school, vacation Bible school, and worship. When the time came for the kids to begin school, my husband and I knew we wanted a homeschool curriculum that also supported our faith values. Since language is how humans learn all things, making sure our language arts curriculum was built on a biblical worldview was a priority.

Learn about language arts with a biblical worldview

6 Things to Look for in a Christian Homeschool Science Curriculum

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You want to find a homeschool science curriculum that does not challenge your core beliefs on every page. You also want to find a Biblically-based science curriculum that will properly train potential future scientists. Does such a curriculum exist? It’s possible to find a homeschool science curriculum that starts with a Biblical worldview and teaches the critical thinking skills necessary for your children to become scientists, if that’s what they want to be. Keep reading to find out what to look for in a Christian homeschool science curriculum.

Learn what to look for in a science curriculum

What is a Biblical Worldview and Why Is It Important in Education?

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Everyone has some type of worldview, but Christians are to hold a biblical worldview, which means that every decision and action should be shaped by the Truth that was from the beginning—Jesus Christ. The question to consider is not whether you have a worldview, but rather, is your worldview true? If Christians don’t use discernment, we can allow popular worldviews to confuse us. BJU Press is committed to upholding a biblical worldview in education. We also want to help you, as a homeschool parent or educator, understand different worldviews so you can help shape a biblical worldview in your children and make informed decisions about the curriculum you use.

Learn about worldviews

In-Depth Worldview Education

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worldview education globes
Some Christian educators watch with concern as students finish a “Christian worldview education.” They observe that sometimes these students are too quick to label ideas such as feminism and Marxism in order to dismiss them without engaging with understanding.

This can be a real problem. If students fail to understand ideas that they don’t agree with, they won’t be able to communicate thoughtfully about false worldviews. But what can we do to help them think biblically about distorted worldviews?

The problem is not with worldview education but with how worldview is taught. Worldview education must go beyond rote memorization of charts with categories. Instead, students must be taught to analyze from the correct biblical perspective (i.e., through the lens of  Creation, Fall, and Redemption). Only then will they be able to evaluate precisely how false worldviews twist God’s good design.

One way to represent Creation, Fall, Redemption is to illustrate it with the terms structure (God’s creational norms) and direction (bending God’s norms in a fallen direction or bending fallen direction back towards God’s creational design). In other words, children must understand how creational norms and sinful direction work in the formation of wrong ideas.

Creational Norms

We teach our children in order to impart wisdom to them, but where can wisdom be found? It begins when our children fear the Lord by submitting to His wisdom rather than embracing evil (Prov. 9:10). God reveals His wisdom in Scripture, but Scripture also directs us to observe God’s wise design in creation (Ps. 19:1; Prov. 8:22–31).God created His world to work in a certain way—according to His blueprint of wisdom.  So paying attention to how God created the world to work in the beginning reveals principles for living according to His wise design in the present. These principles can be called “creational norms” because they were present at creation.

There are creational norms for marriage (Matt. 19:4–8), economics (Exod. 20:9; 2 Thess. 3:11–12), science (Gen. 8:22), and every other facet of life (Isa. 28:24–29). In some areas, we have direct comment from God’s Word. Others come through careful observation of creation.

Sinful Direction

Of course, each of us is corrupted by the Fall. We inevitably bend God’s creational norms in a way that suits our sinful ways. Some people push against the norms a little and some push a lot. In every case, sinners think of their vision of bent norms as correct and natural. While false worldviews can’t completely ignore creational norms, they bend those norms to fit their vision for individuals and society. The creational norms are still present but in a twisted state.

Redemptive Direction

The challenge for believers is discerning between what part of the sinner’s vision is creational and what part is sinful direction. Christians have an obligation to identify creational norms. Of course, we’re going to engage with many ideas that push these norms in a bad direction. Some of these bad directions have been codified into law and large institutions.

When we encounter these norms, bent in a sinful direction, we should seek to live faithfully in light of redemption by pushing back in a redemptive direction, that is, back toward their creational state.worldview education direction vs. structure

The Case of Marriage

Creational Norm

A discussion of creational norms and sinful direction is difficult to understand without an example. So let’s examine marriage as an illustration of how these principles work out. God created marriage when He made humans male and female. He even gave us a direct word on what marriage should look like in Genesis 2:23–24. This passage outlines the creational norm for marriage.

Fallen Direction

Very quickly after the fall, people started bending marriage in various sinful directions. Polygamy and serial divorce were and continue to be serious examples of bending marriage in a sinful direction.

worldview education bad direction vs. structureRedemptive Direction

When God graciously gave his people the law, He pressed them towards the creational norm. We might have predicted that He would ban divorce, but He didn’t. He regulated it very strictly (Deuteronomy 24:1–5). God put in place legal protections for women being divorced by their husbands.

God still hates divorce; Jesus made that clear. But He understood that the people were evil and were going to divorce, so He established laws that protected a woman when a husband decides to divorce.

Reformation

When the Lord graciously gave Israel laws, He modeled a reformational approach to creational norms that has been twisted by the Fall. In a civil setting, He moved His people towards His creational norms without legally requiring something they would not do. To be clear, God calls us to take radical action against personal sin. But in the civil setting, His laws guided His people like children to make reasonable steps toward the norm.

Reformation requires nuance and understanding of the creational norms and the false worldview. Only then can we discern a corrective step that doesn’t create the chaos that comes with radical measures.

Effective Worldview Education

When we teach our children science, history, math, and literature, we want them to develop skills in finding creational norms. As our children grow, they need to learn to understand and evaluate false worldviews that twist creational norms. Finally, our children need to begin learning to create steps to reform within their context.

This kind of worldview education produces children who do more than dismiss. It enables them to create reformation steps in their generation. To help you equip your children to do just that, BJU Press provides in-depth treatment of these concepts in our Biblical Worldview textbook. 

 

What Is the Bigger Purpose of Science?

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Science
The aftermath of the Fall is all around us. Today’s mounting concern about issues such as global warming, deforestation, and animal extinction is evidence of that, and homeschool families like yours are often more aware of current issues and events than others.

Though we don’t have the power to stop the deterioration of our environment, it’s our duty as good stewards to care for the world God has given us to the best of our ability. While it may be true that those who spend their lives studying the climate, plants, and animals know best how to care for them, that doesn’t mean we all have to become meteorologists, ecologists, and botanists in order to fulfill our responsibilities. You may have dreamed of your child one day making a great scientific contribution—what parent wouldn’t?—but not every child can be a scientist.

So what is the bigger purpose of your children studying science from elementary to high school? Studying science should give your children the tools they need to take better care of creation.

There are two key tools that your children will gain in science lessons.

• A practical understanding of how the world works

When they know how the world works, they can make informed decisions about real-world issues. If your children don’t know the factors that contribute to climate change, they won’t be able to choose a practical solution to incorporate into everyday life. They may choose something that seems effective without knowing the consequences of that choice. On the other hand, if your children do know those factors, they’ll be able to recognize when suggested solutions either won’t last or will merely substitute one problem for another.

• The ability to think like scientists

Science should teach your children to research, observe, and verify under varying circumstances. Rather than expecting them to go into their adult lives pre-equipped with all the knowledge they will need, we should make sure our children are able and willing to do the work of finding answers to problems they’ve never encountered before.

As a graduate assistant, I helped teach a rhetorical writing class. My students all had to write their research papers on energy technology and policy, a subject most of them knew very little about. It was always obvious when my students thought they could succeed in writing the paper through their own knowledge of the subject alone. They weren’t willing to find out what they needed to know about energy in order to do well on the paper.

BJU Press textbooks drive home a practical understanding of the world and of scientific thinking as they weave together a biblical worldview (presenting the Creation Mandate for Christians as well as the demonstration of God’s character in nature) and the discipline of the scientific method. Life Science for Grade 7 explores the potential benefits of biofuels, while Biology for Grade 10 focuses on a balanced view of the conservation of  the earth’s resources.

Armed with both an understanding of the world and a willingness to learn, your children will be better equipped to appropriately use creation, even if they don’t develop a revolutionary new fuel system.