BJU Press Blog

biblical worldview

Fallen Hearts Twisting Education

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As a child, I enjoyed visiting the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, with my family. With its historic airplanes and artifacts from the space race, the Air and Space Museum was my favorite. One of my most vivid memories from our trip was what my dad said as we walked toward the Museum of Natural History. “Much of what we’ll see in this museum rejects the Bible,” he warned. “We need to remember that what God said in Genesis is true and what we’ll see today is merely what man thinks.”

I remember thinking that some of the displays promoting evolution were silly as I tried to reconcile the assertions of the evolutionary view with the incredible technological advances of our age. How could so many people with so much education and so much money be wrong about this? How could the generation of scientists that produced the marvels I saw in that museum be mistaken about the origins of mankind? The answer lies in what went wrong.

In Genesis 3, we learn that humans sinned and sin broke everything. Now creation groans, conflict spreads, and death reigns. But of all sin’s consequences, it is the condition of our hearts that is most frightful. In a previous post, we looked at how creation shapes education. In this post, let’s examine how the human heart was twisted in every way in the Fall and how, as a result, we twist every part of God’s creation including science, history, and the rest of education.

The Connection of Loving and Thinking

Romans 3:10 teaches us the pervasiveness of sin’s effects on mankind. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Then in the next verse, Paul quotes a psalm placing what we love and what we think right next to each other: “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Romans 3:11). But what is the link between seeking God and understanding?

Proverbs 1:7 makes the connection between right affections for God and right thinking when it says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” The most important part of gaining right knowledge is a right relationship with the Lord. And the Lord puts His finger on this relationship because if we cannot love the one being in the universe who is most worthy of our love, then we cannot come to correct conclusions about His universe.

That’s the reason brilliant scientists don’t want to acknowledge that God created them. Their distaste for Him leads them to devise alternative explanations for our origins. This is also why historians believe that man created civilizations that invented gods rather than that God created humanity to develop civilization.

Intelligent, educated people come to wrong conclusions not because their minds are incapable of thinking correctly but because—due to the Fall—their hearts are incapable of loving God as they should.

Educating Hearts and Minds

When mankind sinned, the human heart fell. That fallen heart leads the mind to think incorrectly. Given the nature of learning, broken hearts and minds affect every aspect of our children’s education.

When anyone teaches children, he isn’t relaying only facts and skills to the next generation. He’s passing on personal values (what he loves). Neil Postman, in his 1996 book The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School, observed that education is worship: “For school to make sense, the young, their parents, and their teachers must have a god to serve, or even better, several gods.” He argues that US public schools are dedicated to serving, among others, the god of consumerism. Worshipers of consumerism learn so that they can get jobs and buy the best cars, houses, and vacations.

If Postman, who was a secular humanist, saw the religious nature of education, we as Christian parents need to think through the worship implications of the educational choices we make for our children—especially if we’ve dedicated our homes as Joshua did when he said: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

The Smithsonian not only presents secular society’s view of the past, it demonstrates secularists’ pride in America’s great accomplishments. That’s why the artifacts in the Air and Space Museum represent man’s hope in continual technological advances. You won’t find a Smithsonian museum dedicated to the hope of the gospel. Our hope of redemption is what we want to share with our children through our homeschooling. In the next post, we’ll look at how that hope transforms education.

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Stories Make a Worldview of Difference

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Homeschooling is an extraordinary experience. We have our children at home all the time. As Christian parents, we get to instill our values in them in a Deuteronomy 6:7 sort of way. In fact, that scriptural  command is why we want to give our children a Christian education. To do that we have to base everything we teach on a biblical worldview.

But what is a worldview? One online dictionary says that a worldview is a “collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group,” but that’s a little generic. Consider this definition from Merriam-Webster for English Language Learners: “The way someone thinks about the world.” Again, not very specific, especially when we’re trying to construct a solid foundation for our children’s education.

Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, uses a metaphor that I really like. He talks about worldview as a pair of glasses. This illustration resonates with me because it brings the concept of worldview from the philosophical realm into everyday experience.

Ken talks about how two equally intelligent scientists can look at the exact same evidence (say, the Grand Canyon) and come to two completely different conclusions. It’s because they’re viewing it through different lenses. One scientist looks at the Grand Canyon through biblical glasses and sees evidence of Noah’s Flood. The other looks at the Grand Canyon through uniformitarian glasses (the idea that all geological events happen in “uniform” ways) and sees evidence of millions of years. The conclusion each scientist comes to is based on his or her worldview, which determines how he or she views the evidence.

Understanding Worldview

A worldview answers several crucial questions for those who hold it, including where we came from and why we are here. A worldview defines what it means to be human. So we can distinguish one worldview from another by its answers to those questions.

However, most of us don’t think in terms of these grand questions as we go about our everyday lives. But our worldview is still there, shaping the way we see the world.

A simpler way to understand worldview is to think of it as a story—or better yet, a big story. For most people, the answers to life’s most challenging questions fit into a story. This is helpful since small children routinely use stories to interpret their world. But it’s not just for children, adults also think about the world through the lens of the stories they believe.

Telling Different Stories

Seeing worldviews as stories helps Christians understand our own worldview. The Bible is, among other things, a big story. It tells us that God created the universe but His good creation was thrown into disorder by human sin. It also tells us how God is working to redeem humankind from that sin.

Secular humanists tell a different story. They tell a tale of great human progress taking place without God’s involvement. They tell stories about how religion often stops human progress. Their heroes are people who stand up against the church. And scientists like Bill Nye look to education to “save” people apart from God.

Getting the Narrative Right

The stories told by secular humanism dominate public education. That’s why so many Christians have opted for homeschooling. When we homeschool our children, we can tell them the Bible’s true account of creation, fall, and redemption every day of the week.

But there’s a potential problem—if we use curriculum shaped by the secular humanists’ stories then those educational materials will argue for secular humanism. And we can’t change the core argument of secular education by adding devotionals on top—like icing on a cake. We have to teach from a biblical worldview perspective from the get-go.

Science, history, math, and literature must be based on the narrative of creation, fall, and redemption. This true story changes the way we view everything, including education.

Think of ways the Bible’s story changes the way we view subjects such as literature and history.

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Is Bible the Icing on the Cake?

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Icing on the cake. We use this phrase to indicate that something good has been added to something that is already good. There’s no change to the thing being added to, but it makes the thing extra nice.

In her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey uses this metaphor to describe a mistake that many Christian educators make. They’re trying to change the educational cake to make it Christian by adding the icing of prayer and devotionals, but the core of the material covered doesn’t change. It’s the same secular education that public schools peddle.

So often Christians take something that is fundamentally secular and spread the Bible on it like icing on a cake. But it isn’t a good cake to start with; it’s poison.

When we decide to educate our children at home, we may do it because we want them to have a wholesome atmosphere. Or we want to personally teach them the gospel and challenge them to walk according to God’s Word. But what about the academic education we’re giving them? Is it a biblical cake? Or have we merely added icing to the secular cake?

Christianity on the Surface

As Christian homeschool families, we should try to make sure the education our children receive is Bible based. We don’t teach evolution as science, which is very important. But beyond observing that God created all things, is our teaching different from what they would hear in a public school classroom?

Here are some attempts at making teaching Christian that I’ve observed. As you read through them, ask yourself if they’re using a new recipe or only adding a devotional layer to the teaching.

  • “The plus sign looks like a cross, so every time we do addition we can think about Jesus dying on the cross for us.”
  • “We have to have consistency in verb tense. Remember that we should be consistent in our Christian lives.”
  • “Caterpillars go through a process called metamorphosis to become butterflies. Just like caterpillars, Christians are transformed at salvation.”

In each of these examples, the academic subject is used as an opportunity to consider something Christian. It’s not that such analogies related to math, grammar, and science are bad or wrong. The problem is that they’re merely icing on the cake. The subject matter is still the same; we’ve just added something on the surface that is biblical.

Beneath the Surface

What will happen if we fail to remake the teaching of a subject? What if we only make analogies when we stop talking about history or language arts to talk about the Bible? If we continue to teach coursework in a similar way to the public school down the road, we’ve failed to approach all learning from a biblical starting point. We’re adding Christian icing to the secular cake. And if you start with a poisonous cake, good frosting isn’t going to fix it.

As our children get older, they’ll recognize that the icing can be removed and they’ll still have the same secular cake. Math, language arts, science, and history all work without the icing that we spread on top of the subjects. Perceptive children will see that they can drop God’s authority in their lives and still use math, science, and other subjects.

Take math as an example. Our children must learn that our use of math is subject to God. If not, they may believe that they can use math without submitting themselves to the Lord, using it fraudulently instead of lovingly. They need to understand that we use tools like math to follow God’s commands to rule over God’s good creation in ways that are in keeping with His law.

That’s why we need to go beyond just adding icing onto the cake. We need to use a new recipe for a new cake—that is, learning transformed by the Word of God.

Worldview Shaping 

We transform learning through biblical worldview shaping. In future posts, I’ll explore what worldviews are and provide a model that helps us use the Bible to transform our children’s education.

In the meantime, think about your children’s education at home. Are you using a new recipe for their cake or putting icing on a secular cake?

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Learning About the Big Story in Reading

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The world is preparing for yet another Christmas. My family enjoys a lot of things about Christmas—the lights, the food, the special family time, the gift-giving—but I don’t want us to become preoccupied with those things to the extent that we forget about why we celebrate the holiday in the first place. I want my children to understand how the Christmas story fits within the storyline of the Bible. BJU Press reading curriculum is helping me reach that goal.

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One of the things I love about the third edition of Reading 2 is the Bible retellings. When BJU Press revised the curriculum, they added four Bible retellings (one in each reader) in order to help develop a child’s biblical worldview. These selections recount the main storyline of the Bible (Creation, Fall, and Redemption) and challenge the student to apply these worldview-shaping truths to other selections as well.

The first Bible retelling at the end of the first reader deals with the first two major parts of the biblical storyline—Creation and the Fall. Honestly, this was one of my favorite selections in the entire first reader, and I felt that it was one of the most profitable. My second-grade daughter has heard this story countless times at home, at church, and during the first couple of weeks of our Bible curriculum. But covering it during “reading class” was different because we were able, with the help of the Reading 2 Teacher’s Edition, to dig deep into the narrative. The questions in the Teacher’s Edition not only deepened my daughter’s understanding of the significance of Creation and the Fall but also paved the way for some needed spiritual conversations.

During this Christmas season, we’ll have the opportunity to read the second Bible retelling that’s located at the end of the second reader. This selection recounts the birth of Jesus and highlights how God fulfilled His promise to Adam and Eve by sending mankind a Redeemer. Again I’m impressed by the questions in the Teacher’s Edition. They will help my daughter understand the significance of the incarnation as well as its connection to the Creation/Fall narrative in Genesis. I’m already anticipating some good discussions about the evidences of true faith and the sovereignty of God. What wonderful truths to have on our minds throughout the Christmas season!

Later on this year, we’ll continue learning about God’s redemptive plan by reading two more selections: one about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and one based on future events foretold in the book of Revelation. Again, these selections cover material familiar to us. But they’re a vital part of my daughter’s education. They explain the big story of the world. They teach her to value the things God values.  And they help her think biblically and rightly about the world around her.

Interested in learning more about this reading curriculum? View some sample pages from the student readers and the Teacher’s Edition of Reading 2.

The GEM Approach: A Biblical Approach to Objectional Elements in Literature

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Ever since we started reading picture books to our daughters, my wife and I have evaluated the content of the books we bring into our home. Now that our six-year-old is reading on her own, evaluating for objectionable elements is even more important. Below is an excerpt from Elements of Literature Teacher’s Edition. This is the philosophy we use when reviewing books for our children, and it has served me well ever since I read it as a student. I hope you find that it is helpful for your family as well.

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“Educational censorship remains one of the most controversial issues in public life, linked as it is to political censorship and freedom of the press. The basis of a truly biblical position concerning censorable elements is the following distinction. If a work of literature or other element of the curriculum treats evil in the same way that it is treated in the Scriptures, we regard it as not only acceptable but also desirable reading. If it does not treat evil in the way evil is handled in the Scriptures, its content is not good.

“Evil in the Bible appears dangerous and repulsive. Reflections of evil appear in the form of negative examples so as to create a defense against what they represent or to give hope to the fallen for forgiveness and recovery from sin.

“We may draw the following three criteria from the Scriptures for judging literary and other works with respect to their content.

Gratuitousness

“Is the representation of evil purposeful or is it present for its own sake? We know that ‘all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works’ (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Nothing in the Scriptures is superfluous or irrelevant to this high spiritual purpose.

Explicitness

“Is the representation of evil, if purposeful, present in an acceptable degree? Or is it more conspicuous or vivid than the purpose warrants? No one with a high view of Scripture would charge it with inappropriateness or excessiveness in its representation of evil. The presentation of evil in the Bible is realistic enough to convince us of its threat as a temptation but not so realistic as to become for us a temptation.

Moral Tone

“Is evil made to appear both dangerous and repulsive? What is the attitude of the work toward it? ‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil,’ says the Lord through the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 5:20). A good work of literature does not glorify human weakness or encourage tolerance of sin. It allows evil to appear in a controlled way in order to develop in the reader or hearer a resistance against it. In literature, ‘vice,’ wrote Samuel Johnson, ‘must always disgust.’ Its purpose is to initiate the reader through ‘mock encounters’ with evil so that evil cannot later deceive him—so that he will be better able to maintain a pure life in a fallen world.

“These three criteria are complementary. None is alone sufficient to justify the censorable in a work of literature or another element of the curriculum. Together they work powerfully, because they work biblically, to preserve moral purity while providing for a developing moral understanding and judgment.”

Editor’s note: Excerpted from Elements of Literature Teacher’s Edition  (p. viii), published by BJU Press. 

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