We might compare getting an education today with eating. Just as in a buffet line, students must choose. Different schools offer different menus. Items served at faith based schools do not appear on the table at secular schools.
Many observers note what they call the widespread separation of fact and faith. Secular classrooms primarily focus on matters of observable facts and human knowledge with the result that faith questions must be left to another venue. Prayer no longer plays a role in most classes. Publically funded schools no longer assume or promote presuppositions associated with Christian values. Some even suggest that the Christian faith is not worthy of academic review or consideration.
Christian education takes a different approach. It reasons that belief in a creator who revealed himself to us should be studied together with the observable facts and human knowledge (i.e., science, art, literature, etc.). So we say: Begin class with a prayer. Make chapel a central fixture in education. Frame the topic within the Christian worldview.
Combining fact and faith does not mean moving facts off the table. Christian education includes the study of higher learning, but it seeks to add faith to the discussion. For the most part, this combination exists within the faculty themselves, with degrees in their chosen discipline, but also deeply immersed in the Christian faith. The integration of higher learning and biblical faith comes first in the life of the professor.
Christian education does not imply a sheltered academic setting which forbids the insights of the contemporary intellectual world. Indeed, we believe that all truth is God’s truth, whether discovered in a test tube, through a telescope or by divine inspiration. Even ideas that run counter to the Christian worldview must be carefully examined. Such perspective finds foundation in Jesus’ admonition to be in the world but not of the world.
Christian education aims to produce thinking people who can separate fact from fiction, who can integrate scripture with the academy, who know what it means to include both Mars Hill and the Sermon on the Mount.
Even the academic study of biblical scripture seeks this goal. Christian education provides a place for students to ask any question of the biblical text. We believe scripture can handle penetrating questions. With this approach, the Christian worldview not only survives but thrives.
So in a world that seeks separation, we seek a holistic approach. We set a full table.
Come to the feast.
-Harold Shank