Candles in the Dark: The Importance of Quality Christian Schools

I watched a documentary once about Eastern European Jews who moved to The United States after World War II.  The interviewer asked a group of rabbis why they thought this particular group had been able to retain its values and community even after living several generations in this country.

“We made an important decision,” one of the rabbis said. “We saw how Christians and earlier groups of Jews in America had invested in large and beautiful sanctuaries. They poured most of their resources into adults. We decided to build simple worship spaces so we could invest most of our resources into our children. In fact, most of our rabbis worked secular jobs so we could pay pay our children’s teachers well.”

In short: Hasidic Jews built schools. They used their tithe to support education. They focused their energies on equipping children to thrive as Jews in a secular environment.

I thought about that documentary recently as I drove to a speaking engagement at the Agathos Classical Christian Academy banquet in Colombia Tennessee.

As I drove that an hour or so to the banquet, I passed numerous churches. Many of them were large. Most of them were empty and dark. It dawned on me that these campuses represent a vast physical resource which, in most cases, is grossly underutilized. Meanwhile, schools like Agathos struggle to do something most churches no longer really do: instruct Christian children in the values and beliefs of Christian faith.

I realize I am in a decided minority when I claim that the greatest single tragedy of modern American Christianity is the loss of catechism. What I mean by catechism is simply the intentional instruction of our youth in the principles and values of the faith. Modern church work simply does not value that. Nor do we tend to value those who do it. Pastors, including children and youth pastors, are rarely judged by how well they instill the lessons of scripture in our children and youth. They are judged by how many people they attract to the church, people who will hopefully pay the bills that support the church’s campus and programs. Why that is even important if we don't know what we believe is not a question we often stop to ask. 

Many, if not most of our children grow up in an “effective youth group” without ever really learning the essence of Christian faith.  They usually make some sort of profession of faith along the way, (whatever that means in the long run) they hear warnings about the dangers of drugs and sex; they just don't learn how St. Paul’s Book of Romans remains relevant in today’s world.

Even after our our kids began studying trigonometry and the principles of abnormal psychology at school, our churches keep leading them in singing emotional ditties, listening to empty platitudes and clichés, and then inviting them to eat pizza. That is supposed to keep our kids convinced that our faith is about more than maintaining our large church corporations, remnants of ancient and unreflected myths that have little to say to today's world.

I know, church leaders often moan and groan about the loss of our young adults. We usually determine that the cause must be the lighting, the music, young peoples’ lack of opportunities to enter church leadership – anything other than the fact we might be losing young adults because what we say and do doesn’t seem to have much substance once one becomes a mature, educated adult. 

Historically, Christianity placed a high value on learning. Christians founded a huge percentage of the world’s universities and other kinds of schools. Many colleges in non-Christian nations have Christian foundations.  However, for several generations now, we have been playing the fool when it comes to education. There are large and influential parts of our faith in the United States that see no connection between subjects like science, math and the like and faith. Is it any wonder then that we lose some of our most intellectually gifted children, generation after generation?

What should we expect?

Ok. At this point I am cursing the darkness. This is an old complaint and repeating it once more doesn’t really help.

People like the folk at Agathos are doing something more. They are lighting candles.

I wish you could meet their students. These normal American kids study their lessons and learn their material. They are also Christians, preparing to live and behave as believers making a contribution within an increasingly secular world.

I see this quality often in children who go to classical schools. These schools produce children who make friends with adults, who express clear opinions, and who learn how to respectfully disagree and debate their options. In other words, these schools produce educated, mature Christians. That is something our churches are not doing nearly as well.

As a pastor, I cannot help but think that if we turned even a third of our church campuses into good schools, or even turned over our church campuses to these schools during the day, we might do immeasurable good for the future of our faith.

It goes without saying that Christian schools need to actually educate children.  Christian brainwashing is not really education. Education is the process of teaching people how to think for themselves. That is why I insist that the classical model is the quintessential model for delivering a quality Christian education. It doesn't always produce believers because when a person really learns to think he or she has a real choice to make about faith. However, those who do authentically chose the faith are actually making a choice; they are not merely going to church occasionally to keep mom and dad happy. 

If our faith is actually true and not merely comforting; if it still has the power to produce a Bach, an Aquinas, a Mendel or a John Adams, then it is time that we get back to doing the kinds of things that encourage such people to development.

 

So here’s a shout out to the folks at Agathos and all the other great schools in our area. You are lighting candles and a few of us see them. And here is a plea to our pastors and other Christian leaders – lets help these folk build up the future of our Lord’s church in this country. Let’s share our resources with them. Let’s keep them encouraged by acknowledging their enormous worth in advancing the cause of Christ.

Staying Sane in an Age of Folly

A few aging Chinese leaders have been making public apologies for the lives they destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. In the 1960s, a rage swept through Chinese society against artists, philosophers, and other kind of intellectually gifted people. In those days, even possessing classical literature – including Chinese classical literature – could invite public scorn, humiliation and even imprisonment. To survive, one had to learn how to spit in the street and pepper his speech with obscenities and colloquialisms.

Many of the persecutors were young. They became infected by a wave of nationalism and worked to reform their nation from what they saw as the degenerate effects of refinement.

Hundreds of thousands died during this era of madness. Most of the victims perished simply because they had obtained proficiency in some area of human interest. Those who did not perish learned how to deny their intelligence, talent and taste until the madness passed. Rational discourse, helpful during normal times for maintaining civility and the rule of law among those of different opinions, became a sign of one’s decadence and lack of conviction. So silence didn’t help. To live, one had to actually adopt barbarity.

Many societies fall prey to this sort of madness from time to time. In the 1950s, Senator McCarthy terrified the American populace with his campaign against communism. Soon, no one who had ever read Marx or had ever studied Russian language and literature was safe. Not even the American government could contain the hysteria. In fact, for a season, the government became an active agent of the hysteria.

On a smaller scale, the Scopes Trial, made famous by the movie Inherit the Wind, represented the same sort of social hiccup. A high school biology teacher in East Tennessee referred to Darwin’s Origin of Species in class one day. So he found himself in trouble with the law. That released a religious suspicion of science that continues to plague much of American culture.

Christian denominations go through the same sort of thing from time to time.  Some group within the denomination begins to claim more holiness, theological purity, fidelity to the past -- something surely more important than friendship and human decency -- and a purge begins that sweeps away folks that just yesterday were thought of as deeply committed Christians and friends.  

The thing that connects these kinds of public moods is fear and disdain for the products of civilization: things like wisdom, education, refinement, and social grace. In times of folly, the unrefined, crass, obstinate, passionate and non-compromising demagogues take the stage. They whip the masses up against scientists, artists, philosophers, theologians or any other kinds of degenerate elements in their society they believe are working to to overturn their community’s accustomed way of life or viewing the world.  

In such times, no one is allowed to remain neutral. Everyone must chose sides.

As in China’s Cultural Revolution, the reign of folly soon erodes confidence even in one’s own cultural resources. Those Asian hooligans marked the likes of Bach and Plato as agents of foreign contamination.  However stupid, that was an understandable mistake for youthful patriot in the Eastern World to make.  It didn’t take long though for their suspicions to spread to the writings of Lao Tzu and Confucius.  Thus they eroded public respect for their own heritage, finally dishonoring even other communists who differed in some obscure point from their own high ideological standards.

When this kind of madness seizes a Christian community, quoting from a secular writer can seriously damage a leader's credibility. He will probably quickly learn to avoid making that mistake. In seasons of real folly however, he must also be cautious about quoting respected Christian scholars from the past. He must even be cautious about going too deeply into biblical studies. He must be cautious even when drawing upon scholarly sources to make the case he believes his listeners want him to make. An age of folly does not encourage reflection, even reflection upon the principles it claims to embrace. It's war is actually against reason and civility itself. So seasons of folly are times for clichés, for passionate outcries against the current popular targets, and for affirming one's own credentials as a participant in the crusade against the structures of culture and civilization.

The Book of Proverbs warns of the effects of these kinds of social movements. It depicts society as a city when two women walk the streets, asking the people to make a decision about they future.

One woman wears bells on her fingers and bells on her toes. Her house smells of fine spice. She offers the city’s inhabitants endless nights of unmentionable ecstasy.

Lets call her Dame Folly.

The other woman also welcomes people into her home, but for a great feast and intelligent conversation. This woman invites people to become wise by joining a community of those who seek wisdom.

So lets call her Lady Wisdom.

The writer of Proverbs watches with dismay as the masses follow Dame Folly and ignore Lady Wisdom. They march into the depths of hell he says, singing and laughing their way to destruction.

Lady Wisdom requires too much. Enjoying the charms of Dame Folly is easy – you just show up and join the crowd. You take up the current chant and enjoy the rush of this mass solidarity against reason, civility and rational discourse.

Erasmus wrote his little satirical story, In Praise of Folly to make the same point, He tells how the goddess Folly gains power over all other gods. Basically, its because the others gods bore the people. Folly delights them. So she often wins the struggle, at least in the short run.

Most of us have witnessed the arrogance of a young person reentering society with his newly earned Bachelors degree. He now knows everything about everything and he is anxious to share his knowledge with us. In times of sanity, wise people smile. They realize that life will soon take care of the young guy's attitude. He is intoxicated with knowledge. He is not quite ready for wisdom.  His arrogance is obnoxious, to be sure. However, we know that what he actually needs is a more knowledge. He needs to know he will never live long enough to learn very much. So humility will come as he gains a bit more knowledge. That is what Alexander Pope meant when he said "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." 

But what do we do with arrogant ignorance? What, pray tell, do we do with people who believe they are right just because they are right and are uninterested in any further discussion about it? How do we deal with people who are proud of ignorance and claim it as a virtue, or as a form of piety? What can we do with folly except hide from it during those occasional seasons in which it gains enough power to persecute and destroy?

Until the madness passes, one must learn to spit in the street. He must hide his books. He must honor banalities and pretend that the thoughts and works of the ages are nothing compared to the impenetrable paradoxes of the mad, but powerful, Chairman Mao.  

Malala Yusafzai nearly paid for her life for failing to abide by the Taliban's rule of folly. She insisted on studying. So they shot her. Unfortunately for them, she recovered and roared back into the fray.

Some people think civilization is worth putting one's life on the line.

Evidently, a few aging Chinese aristocrats wished they might have had the courage to do that rather than to have lived their safe and meaningless lives mumbling clichés, squandering all the time and opportunities they might used to cultivate a life worth living.

Who Owns The Labels?

Over a billion people claim to be Christians.

Czarist Russia was passionately Christian.

South Africa under apartheid was also Christian.

The ethnic-cleansing Bosnians were motivated by their Christian heritage.

The segregated American South certainly thought of itself as Christian.  

All these groups had two things in common: the label 'Christian,' and a firm belief that they were “an,” perhaps “the,” truest expression of Christianity. Most of the people in these societies viewed other professing believers as perhaps less informed than they or, more commonly, as simply counterfeit.

Sooner or later, most groups experience a struggle in which one of its factions claim the exclusive rights to use the label. In current American politics, life-long Republicans are getting purged from their party because classical Republicanism has apparently lost its right to use a label now claimed by Libertarian nativists as their proprietary right.

The same thing occurs in Christian circles though, and often for the same reasons.

In many Evangelical publications one constantly encounters phrases like "true believers," "born again Christians," or "Bible believing Christians." The phrases are meant to make a point: that while others may label themselves "Christian," they are not to be thought of as legitimate because they don't subscribe to the tenants of those who read such publications. Since we might mistakenly think such people are Christians, we apparently need to insert adjectives like "true," bible believing," and so forth before our own use of a label that we unfortunately share with others who do things differently than we.

Of course, these adjectives imply that someone has the authority, the right or the responsibility to decide who is (or is not) entitled to use the label "Christian." They also control the flow of judgment so that judgment flows in only one direction -- toward those being judged – and never toward those who are doing the judging.

Christianity is two thousand years old. In its long history, it has taken on a myriad of cultural forms. Ethiopian Copts, for example, are among the world's oldest groups of believers. Charismatic Protestants are among some of the youngest. Each of these embody certain cultural uniquenesses, which may cause the members of both communities to ignore the common ground from which they each spring.  Nowadays of course, church can borrow from both Copts and Charismatics but that will probably tick off important factions in both communities. We like our distinctions. Actually, we tend to be more committed to our distinctions than we to the underlying faith itself.

The things that really divide Christians are mostly the cultural, ethnic and linguistic adaptations that believers have made as their religion spread across the globe into new places and into new eras of time. Our faith's cultural products -- things like Gospel music or stained glass -- become enshrined and sanctified. At some point in this process, our faith becomes difficult to envision if it lacks the particular wrappings of our branch of the faith.

Theology has usually followed, rather than preceded, such differences.  A group's theology usually develops to defend its cultural preferences and habits rather than the other way around.

For example, the use of incense in worship, although mentioned often in the Bible, is unacceptable to Evangelicals. Sunday School and altar calls on the other hand, (which the Bible does not mention,) are viewed as essential. Merely pointing something like that out can make people pretty angry though. The reason is simple: people's passion nearly always gets wrapped up in cultural preferences more than in the actual essence of faith.

These cultural differences were not much of a problem to believers in earlier times. Greek Orthodox people lived far away, or a long time ago. A Southern Baptist didn't have to think about who such people were or what possible kingship they might have to him. Of course, the same can be said for Christians of other groups. Christians loved the faith as they had received it. They didn't question whether or why the form in which they experienced faith differed from the form preferred by those of other times and in other places. Our grandparents meant no harm by adopting this attitude. They were merely the children of their own time and place and expressed their faith accordingly.

In our time and place, we can no longer innocently adopt such a stance.  We are in a globalized world; Copts, Baptists, Pentecostals and groups called "the Fish House" and the "Watching Room," compete for the label "Christian." Some younger believers have resolved this by deciding not to use the word Christian at all. They have broken with New Testament language altogether and call themselves "Christ followers." But surely that is simply a novel way to say "real Christian."  Calling themselves "Christ followers" helps these enlightened people communicate to themselves (and to the rest of the world) that they are the real McCoy and are not like all those other fake, nominal, or, God-forbid, traditional Christians.

There is nothing wrong with adapting our faith to our own time and place if these adaptations do not conflict with the underlying faith itself. That is the problem however. If our loyalties to the adaptation, the faction, the local expression of our faith gets too intense, we can actually lose the faith itself. When Bosnian Serbs practiced ethnic cleansing, Christians in other places did not accept their explanation that they were actually defending the faith. We felt like they were violating our common faith by misusing the label.

From time to time, someone must have the courage to examine the faction in the light of the whole community. Then, he or she must have the courage to confront the claim of over zealous factions that work to eradicate all nuances and expressions of their community that differ from theirs.

Democracy, by very definition, contains difference. If we eliminate the difference, we destroy the democracy. We can win elections and arguments and still sustain the democracy. But if we brutally suppress our opponents, we may lose the things that support not only them, but which also which supports us. An arm or a leg cannot live if it annihilates all the other body parts. St. Paul makes this point very clear in his first letter to the Corinthians.

 

Maintaining civility, trust and mutual respect with those with whom we differ but with whom we also defend common community, is difficult. It requires people to become adults. It requires not only a desire to win, but also a willingness to compromise rather than to keep pushing until all that all sides hold precious gets utterly and irretrievable lost.