Christian education

500 Years of Reformation and Education

October 17, 2017 by Ben

In our homeschool, we’ve been talking for a year now about how we’ll celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. We want our children, even at a very young age, to mark this milestone in the spread of the gospel. When Martin Luther issued his Ninety-Five Theses for debate, he probably had little idea what influence he would have on all of Western culture.

There’s so much I want my four little girls to know about the Reformation and how much God has blessed us through men He used to recover the Five Solas. We usually relate blessings from the Reformation to biblical doctrine, but there were also significant advances in education.

One area our secular society rarely acknowledges is the impact the reformers had on education. The reformers transformed the way Western civilization thinks about education—a transformation that reaches all the way to us today. And it’s a legacy that I want my little girls to know and appreciate.

Education for Bible Reading

The reformers taught that knowing the Bible was foundational to knowing God fully. And if everyone was going to know God through His Word, they needed to know how to read. So the reformers began to emphasize education. They wanted people to have the basic skills for reading so they could know their God through Scripture.

Education for All

In Germany at the time of the Reformation, education was only for the nobility, the professional classes, and the clergy. That left most of the peasantry without basic literacy instruction. There was no general expectation that every child would learn to read. But Luther and others believed that everyone should know God through Christ. That meant everyone needed to be able to read the Bible for themselves.

Although Luther didn’t come up with the idea of education for all, which is sometimes called universal education, his advocacy and influence contributed to making education for every child a priority in Western culture, so much so that some writers call him the inventor of modern education.

Education for Girls

As a father of daughters, I’m so grateful that when the reformers urged universal education they meant everyone, including women. Previously, women had been left out of education as far back as the Greeks and the Romans. The medieval church also left girls out when it came to education. But reformers such as Luther and Calvin recognized that women need to know God through His Word too. So they taught and practiced educating girls in reading and doctrine.

I want my daughters to know that, in large part, Western civilization’s emphasis on educating girls like them came from the reformers. And the reformers wanted girls to have the gift of education so they could read their Bibles.

Education by Parents

John Calvin picked up on the centrality of parents to their children’s education. Like homeschoolers today, he saw that Deuteronomy 6:7 teaches parents that it’s their duty to teach their children. He insisted that parents take responsibility for their children’s education and that religious morality should be a central aim of their learning.

We are so blessed to live in the shadow of the reformers. In one sense, my personal commitment to Christian homeschooling came from my parents. In another sense, each of us is an inheritor of a five-hundred-year-old tradition of training every child to read so that he or she can know God.

I’m not sure what celebrations my family is going to participate in for the anniversary of the reformation, but every day that you and I homeschool our children we’re paying tribute to these men’s efforts.

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Socialization: My Main Reason for Homeschooling

August 22, 2017 by Ben

If you’re a homeschooler, you’ve probably often been asked, “What about socialization?” Both the skeptical and the concerned like to broach that question. Sometimes it takes a more subtle form: “Are your children involved in sports?” I suspect that some people ask me that just to make sure that my children have interactions with other human beings. Well, of course, they do!

Homeschool families face this concern from generation to generation even though the movement has produced many well-adjusted adults. So is socialization a legitimate reason to not homeschool? As a homeschool father, I believe socialization is one of the best reasons to homeschool.

Will homeschooling produce social misfits?

Concerned friends and family members often worry that our children will become social misfits. Of course, we share this concern. We want our children to develop social graces.

But the worst place to learn social grace is from a group of peers. Trust me, I’ve worked with junior high boys at summer camps; you don’t want your children learning social graces from their peers. The truth is that most children learn social grace from their parents, regardless of where they get their schooling. When parents of publicly educated children fail to teach their children how to interact with others, their children are socially awkward.

What is socialization, really?

Generally, when people talk about socialization, they’re referring to interacting socially with others. But that isn’t what sociologists and educators mean. They define it as the Oxford English Dictionary does: “the process by which a person learns to function within a particular society or group by internalizing its values and norms.” In other words, socialization is children coming to understand what attitudes, values, and behaviors a culture considers normal.

What does public school socialization produce?

What does society think is normal behavior for our children? All sorts of immorality, substance abuse, conspicuous consumption, and disregard for authority.

Paul’s description in Romans 1:29–31 captures much of what our society considers normal: “[People are] filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy . . . , deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection.”

This is what society considers normal, and public schools have been very effective at socializing generation after generation in these norms. I certainly don’t want that socialization for my children.

What socialization do I want for my children?

As my wife and I teach our children, we’re also trying to socialize them. But we want them to consider God’s values and His expectations normal. We want them to graduate from high school producing the fruit of the Spirit.

As Christians, we’re not supposed to fit in. Romans 12:2 commands us not to be conformed to the spirit of this age. When our children reject the world’s norms in favor of God’s norms, I consider that successful parenting. So when people talk to me about socialization, I tell them that socialization is the number one reason I homeschool.

3 Connections Between Faith and Learning

June 8, 2017 by Ben

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, more than 60 percent of homeschoolers choose to teach their children at home because they want to “provide religious instruction.” That was true for my parents when they decided to homeschool me, and it is true for my family as my wife and I now homeschool our children. Secular public education is not an option for us. We want to provide our kids with a Christian education that makes the connection between faith and learning in our homeschool.

Secular Disconnect

If you ask most Christian parents whether they use secular lessons in their homeschool, they typically say, “No way!” But that’s assuming that secular means denying God’s existence. Actually, secularism claims that religion is a private matter and as such shouldn’t influence considerations regarding public life. So we have public officials who say, “I’m a Christian, but I don’t let that affect my decision-making.”

When we take a secular-based teaching of math, science, or English into our homeschool and place religious education around it, we present education and faith as unrelated. We’re still giving our children a secular education by acknowledging a disconnect between faith and learning.

Worldview Connection

The connection between faith and homeschooling comes from a strong biblical worldview. The basis of any worldview is a big narrative that answers crucial life questions such as “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?”

The Bible gives us the narrative of Creation, Fall, Redemption. Understanding this story and its implications for homeschooling enables us to connect faith and learning. Let’s look at how each part of this narrative connects faith and learning.

1. Creation Connection

God created humans in His own image and blessed them with stewardship over all the rest of His other creation. These truths from the creation account enable us to make the first and foundational connection to learning. We learn because God blessed us with His image and gave us a job. Our learning reflects God’s glory and it is a powerful tool for fulfilling His command to exercise rule over creation.

2. Fallen Disruption

When Adam sinned, his heart became fallen. It loves wrongly and so thinks wrongly. The account of the fall points to a second, deeper connection between faith and learning. As we learn, we must be vigilant of wrong thoughts based on wrong loves. That doesn’t frighten us from education. Instead we should use the Bible as a corrective lens in all that we’re learning so that we can evaluate the ideas within any subject and reject the false ones.

3. Redemption Connection

God’s plan for redemption is as sweeping as the fall. It can straighten out all of those twisted thoughts we encounter in science, literature, and history. As believers, we’re obligated to bring every thought into obedience to Christ. This is the final, deepest connection between our faith and learning. When we evaluate an erroneous idea in a subject, we cannot simply identify it as false and move on. We must press it back toward God’s creational design.

Let’s take math and see how a biblical worldview enables us to connect faith and learning. Notice how each step makes a deeper connection.

Creation: Since we’re made in God’s image, we can use math as a powerful tool. So we use it to rule over God’s creation and serve others to bring Him glory.
Fall: God’s lordship over all creation disproves secularists’ claim that “math is neutral.”
Redemption: Math must be governed by the Christian ethic laid out in Scripture. It should only be used to love my neighbor and never used to do my neighbor harm.

You and I know the account of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. But how are we doing bringing these big-story implications for learning to our children’s homeschooling? Take time to determine if your homeschooling is presenting faith and learning as unconnected or if it is reaching the kind of connection that a biblical worldview demands. At BJU Press, we’re committed to providing resources and curriculum that assist homeschool families in creating those connections between faith and learning. Each post below provides an in-depth look at the three connections—Creation, Fall, and Redemption.

Redemptive Homeschooling

May 11, 2017 by Ben

“Daddy!” My five-year-old will routinely exclaim before telling me about something her little sister has broken. I explain that toddlers break things. Then I try to fix whatever toy or block creation has been destroyed. When I do, my five-year-old expects the restoration to match the pre-broken condition. I wish I could do that for her every time, but I can’t.

Recently, I wrote on how the fall twists education in ways that we as Christian homeschool parents need to be aware of. But that raises two questions for us: Can it be straightened out? Do we as parents have a role in straightening it out? We find answers to these questions in the story of redemption and its implications for Christian homeschooling.

God’s Plan for Redemption

Immediately after Adam’s reluctant disclosure of sin, God began the work of redemption. He told Satan: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

In this first promise of redemption (sometimes called the protoevangelium), a promised seed defeats the evil seed. Let’s explore three aspects of this redemptive plan that can shape the way we view our children’s education.

Redemption Involves Conflict

There is enmity between Satan and Christ. Throughout redemptive history, Satan attacked God’s people in an attempt to stop the coming Messiah. When Christ came, the devil tried to take His life and was able to “bruise his heel.” But the cross inflicted the mortal wound, and ultimately Christ will cast the evil one into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).

All of life is a series of skirmishes in this cosmic battle. Satan cannot create anything, so he takes God’s good creation and twists it into weapons against its Maker. So math, reading, science, and history aren’t creations of the devil, but he will seek to use them against the Lord.

Redemption Leads to Restoration

Even though our sinful hearts are eager to cooperate with the evil one in twisting every good part of creation, God intends to straighten it out. Take cities as an example. We’re tempted to think cities are evil at the core. The first city was built by a murderer (Genesis 4:17), and throughout history cities have been centers of all kinds of vice.

But cities were part of God’s creational plan; it was sin that twisted them for evil purposes. In the original creation, God gave humans a mandate to rule over creation and filled the Garden of Eden with all the raw materials needed to develop cities.

In the final chapters of the Bible, we see the culmination of redemption coming in a city. God’s work of redemption pushes cities to their creational purpose.

God created an order for all things. The Fall pushes everything away from that creational purpose, and redemption pushes it toward its creational design.

Redemption Is Comprehensive

Sometimes we’re guilty of thinking redemption only applies to individuals, but it’s as comprehensive as the Fall. Scripture promises a new heaven and a new earth where lions return to their creational design and eat straw like oxen (Isaiah 65:25). Even human use of metals is redeemed as the people of the nations beat their swords into plows (Isaiah 2:4).

Much of this comprehensive redemptive work comes after a final judgement of evil. As long as there is sin, things will be twisted.

Our Role in God’s Plan for Redemption

God’s plan for redemption is confrontational and restorative. It is as comprehensive as the Fall. So what role does homeschooling our children play in His plan?

Redemption in Our Minds

There is a New Testament expectation that we engage in this redemptive confrontation in our minds. Paul instructs us that “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds [and] casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).

A critical part of redemption is waged in our minds. Every thought must be pushed back to its created order—obedience to Christ. That includes thoughts about math, science, literature, and history. Wherever we encounter thinking that is contrary to Scripture, we must refute it and then replace it with redemptive thinking.

Redemption in Our Homeschooling

As parents, we play a critical role in shaping our children’s thinking in all areas of life including when we’re teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Deuteronomy 6:7 tells us to diligently teach them God’s ways on every subject in every circumstance all the time. We shouldn’t be surprised to find that evil twists every part of our lives, but we must prepare ourselves to confront disobedient thoughts in the subjects we’re teaching. And we should respond by pushing that thinking toward Christ.

Read about how a biblical worldview shapes Christian homeschooling on our blog.

Fallen Hearts Twisting Education

April 13, 2017 by Ben

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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