The Agenda of Education
Gary discusses a recent media screed about the ‘racist’ nature of homeschooling and Christian schools.
All argumentation will inevitably be taken back to a single reference point from which the arguer will appeal for authority to support his worldview. That reference point, for example, might be the expert opinion of others. Of course, these experts are not the ultimate authorities. They also appeal to some decisive standard. “[J]ust because most of the authorities in a field are shouting in unison that they know the truth, it ain’t necessarily so.”[1] It is upon a final standard—a standard to which no greater appeal is made—that all worldviews rest.
At the center of every world-view is what might be called the “touchstone proposition” of that world view, a proposition that is held to be the fundamental truth about reality and that serves as a criterion to determine which other propositions may or may not count as candidates for belief.[2]
The idea of a touchstone to establish authenticity, fineness, right and wrong, and justice is an old one. “In the days of the gold rush men used a touchstone, a fine grained dark stone, such as jasper, to determine the quality of the gold which they had discovered. Today a Geiger counter is used to locate uranium and other precious metals. In baseball the umpire makes the decisions in the contest between the pitcher and the batter. In the courtroom the judge decides questions of law. In their respective fields the touchstone, the Geiger counter, the umpire and the judge speak with authority.”[3]
The development of an educational philosophy will always rest upon some ultimate standard of authority. For the Christian school that standard must be the Bible. Not the Bible plus something else. This does not mean that Christian teachers and students are indifferent to knowledge outside special revelation for we know that “the heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Ps. 19:1). It does mean that all knowledge must be filtered through the revelational format of the Bible.
We know that the created order, like man himself, is distorted. The creation now brings forth “thorns and thistles” (Gen. 3:18). God’s special revelation is “perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7). While the “grass withers and the flower fades… the word of our God stands forever” (Isa. 40:8).
At least four competing touchstone propositions will try to work their way into the authority structure of any Christian school: rationalism, empiricism, mysticism, and evidentialism.[4] While Christians cannot and should not deny the reality and usefulness of reason, experience, feelings, and evidences, all Christians must subordinate these competing authorities to the final authority of the Bible.
It’s been said that ‘the philosophy of the classroom in this generation will be the philosophy of life in the next generation.’ Our earliest founding fathers understood this. That’s why, after building homes and churches, they established educational institutions like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth. Over time, most Christians have adopted the false premise that facts are neutral. They believe it doesn’t matter who teaches math, science, and history, because facts are facts. The humanists took advantage of this type of thinking by gradually shaping and controlling education in terms of materialist assumptions.
Gary discusses a recent media screed about the ‘racist’ nature of homeschooling. The article uses actor Kirk Cameron as an example, which is uninformed at best, dishonest at worst. All education is driven by someone else’s agenda. No curriculum is neutral; all seek to impose some sort of ideology in what they present as ‘true’ and ‘factual.’
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[1] William R. Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution (New York: Macmillan, 1984), xix.
[2] William H. Halverson, A Concise Introduction to Philosophy, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw‐Hill, [1967] 1981), 414.
[3] George M. Marston, The Voice of Authority (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1960), xv.
[4] Doug Powell, Holman Quick Source Guide to Christian Apologetics (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2006), chap. 14.
American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources
Source: https://americanvision.org/posts/the-agenda-of-education/
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