(And why is Jesus the Good Shepherd doing it?)
Christian Classical Education (also referred to as Classical Christian Education) is a way forward for educating God’s children.
Proverbs 22:6 tells us, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” And that’s what our ministry is all about.
Now, you might be asking yourself, What IS Classical Education? And how does it differ from what we might call “regular” education in the United States.
Well, for one, what we call classical education had another name prior to about 1850.
It was just “education.”
Everyone who was educated was trained in this manner. It WAS regular school. Before the advent of what we now call “progressive” education, the classical approach was THE approach to education.
So let’s talk about some of the hallmarks that make classical education different from what we see in schools today. Classical Education has been described in many different ways, but the definition that we embrace is:
Learning the true, the good, and the beautiful by teaching the liberal arts through the great books.
There’s a lot to unpack there! Let’s take a few minutes and break it down.
How do we define the true, the good, and the beautiful? Those concepts have been around for a long time.
St. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:8 – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
And these are the things we want to teach for. What God has shown us to be His truth, His, loveliness, His excellence.
Hillsdale College discusses the concept on their website like this:
How do we measure “good”? Is it defined by the majority? Is it measured by self-satisfaction or personal fulfillment? The good of any thing is found in its ability to accomplish what it was created for…to realize its purpose for existence as intended by its maker. Only in this realization can something truly be called “good.” “The good” is possible only in the light of truth. Not truth as it is often defined today, by personal preference or popular consensus, but truth as it is…independent from opinions and emotions. And where goodness and truth exist, there you will find beauty. We were created for a purpose. That purpose is not left to chance or whim, but was determined by our Maker and written in our nature. Our purpose is to seek truth, in order to discover and to act on what is good and beautiful in this life.
That is a simply beautiful way of explaining these concepts. And of course, we know that truth, and true wisdom and knowledge, begin with fear of the Lord. Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” And Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” So, if we are trying to education children in truth, then that of course has to start with the Lord.
This is one reason that we refer to it as “Christian classical education,” rather than, what you’ll hear a lot of times, “Classical Christian Education.” Some would say that it doesn’t really make a difference, and maybe it doesn’t, but we prefer the emphasis on the “Christian” above all. The Christian always has to be our first emphasis if we are training for truth.
Even if we’re examining non-Christian texts, and (we do that in classical learning, because as St, Paul notes in Romans 1:20, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” So, we can sometimes see glimmers of divine wisdom in those who don’t know the Lord, and we can point out where that is,) BUT we can never examine them from a non-Christian perspective, because we are searching for God’s truth in everything that we do.
After all, when we look at that quote from Hillsdale college, we note that the whole purpose of anything is in its ability to accomplish what it was created for. We, as human beings, were created for the purpose of being in relationship with God. So if we’re going to be in relationship with God, we have to be trained up in His ways.
Training our children first and foremost to be good people – good as defined by God – is the whole point to education. Ecclesiastes 12:13 tells us, “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” Friends, if this is our whole duty, doesn’t it make sense that we make this the primary focus of our education?
So back to the definition of Classical Education. What exactly are these liberal arts that we’re talking about? And why do we want to teach them? The liberal arts are the knowledge and skills that all “free” men were to have (it’s a term from back in ancient times – the Latin root “liber” meaning free.)
There is a great quote on this from Patrick Deneen, Professor of Political Philosophy at Notre Dame in his recent book, Why Liberalism Failed:
The liberal arts were long understood to be the essential form of education for a free people, especially citizens who aspired to self-government. The emphasis on the great texts – which were great not only or even because they were old but because they contained hard-won lessons on how humans learn to be free, especially free from the tyranny of their insatiable desires. – has been jettisoned in favor of what was once considered “servile education,” an education concerned exclusively with money-making and a life of work, and hence reserved for those who did not enjoy the title of “citizen.”
And we who are training our young people to be the citizens of heaven, called not servant but friend by our Lord, freed from bondage by him and not slaves to sin. These children should NOT be given the education of serfs, but the education of free men and women.
A Lutheran classical instructor recently put it to her students this way:
Our enemies – the devil, the world, and our own sinful natures – do not rest. But while our enemies are great, God is greater. His love for us is shown in His Son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to set us free from our sins…Because Christ has set us free from our sins, and we stand justified through faith alone, we are free to serve our earthly neighbors through our vocations. The liberal arts help us to see and meet out neighbor’s needs by training us to rightly understand and order the good, the true, and the beautiful gifts God graciously gives to us here on earth.
There it is, brothers and sisters – freed by Christ’s love and sacrifice, we must be trained to order the true, good, and beautiful that God has given in ways to serve Him and serve our neighbors.
So what exactly are these arts? And how do we apply them to this great calling?
These arts are usually grouped into the arts of the trivium – grammar, logic, and rhetoric – and the quadrivium – arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Now, you might notice that the arts of the trivium have to do with language and communication, and the arts of the quadrivium are the mathematical arts – and yes, music is a mathematical art! But since ancient times, these were the skills that equipped people to think, reason, and communicate clearly. Think about it. Grammar is the foundation to everything, not just of language. So grammar is the building of solid foundations. Logic is the clear reasoning through language, and rhetoric is skill in presenting and communicating ideas. These are essential skills in every field. This is the epitome of teaching students HOW to think. Similarly, the mathematical arts are taught in both theory and in application, but with the purpose of training the mind for higher thinking. And why are we training the mind for higher thinking? To better serve the duty of man, which is to love God and obey His commandments.
Now, before you worry that we’re just teaching these skills and not content, let’s look at that last bit of the definition of Classical education – we’re teaching all these skills by using the great books. Of course that starts with the greatest book – the Bible – but it also includes the great works of the Western culture from earliest times to the present. For younger children, we use books that share in these great ideas that have come out of the Great books as they’re learning and developing the skills to be able to get into the great books themselves. So our teaching is very books-centered, and very old-books-centered.
What did C.S. Lewis say? In the Introduction he wrote to On the Incarnation, by St. Athanasius, Lewis wrote this:
Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet.
A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light.
Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why—the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point….
In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed at some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity (“mere Christianity” as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books.
It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.
This is why we allow our program to focus a lot on books, and especially on old books! But did you catch Lewis’s most important point? Our understandings are hampered by only focusing on the modern things. We’re only hearing part of the conversation – we’re only understanding a fraction of the greater pictures. By reading old books, we’re hearing how God has interacted with His people throughout history, and how we as a people have reacted. If we truly want to understand “mere Christianity,” as Lewis quotes above, it’s helpful for us to understand what the mistakes as well as the triumphs of the past have been.
This kind of understanding is going to be so important to our children as they navigate through the choppy waters of modernity. It may seem counter-intuitive to use the past as the way to prepare for the future, but that’s exactly what’s necessary. Only by having the solid core of understanding both Biblical truth and the historic witness of the ages gone by will our children be prepared for the onslaught of misinformation that comes at them daily though television, the internet, and, yes, even those modern books that Lewis warns us about.
So, to summarize, Christian classical education is teaching for discipleship, teaching the skills that have been useful for mankind’s learning since ancient times, and reading and teaching the great books.
This is the kind of program we’re introducing at the Good Shepherd School project.
Some people believe that what makes a school or program “classical” is the teaching of languages like Latin & Greek. Greek, of course is a Biblical language, and we do teach Koine Greek at Good Shepherd. Latin is an important foundational language of English, and it was the language that many of the church fathers wrote in. Both of these help students understand language better and understand the Bible better. And that helps make for stronger young disciples. But it also makes for people who can understand others better. Both Greek and Latin work quite differently than our modern English, and even other modern languages that tend to be studied in most schools like Spanish and French. This is not to say that these modern languages are unimportant. But the older languages help teach students how truly different our cultures can be. And yet, God calls to us in every language, and calls us to witness to every people. In Revelation 5 verses 9 & 10 we’re reminded that:
“for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
We at Jesus the Good Shepherd have no doubts, dear friends in Christ, that we are being called to raise up our children in a way that they can stand with a ministry of all peoples. Now there’s no way we can teach them every language and culture in their formative years, but we can give them a solid study of language that will facilitate their understanding of language and culture and ministering to people who are different. All to the glory of God.
Speaking of the glory of God, all of our sessions begin and end in worship. We believe that our gathering in worship is the most important thing that we do, and we encourage our children to participate in and help lead in worship daily. Worship is our calling as the people of God, and having our young people fully participate in the service of the Lord is formative. It forms their hearts and minds on a daily basis.
Brothers and sisters, if you know of families who are looking for a way to get their children out of the public schools and into a loving, Christian educational environment, we may be able to help. Please pass on that we’re here. We can help partner with families who wish to form children up as disciples, not consumers. We can help train children in virtue for truth, goodness, and beauty, to the Glory of God.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore.
(Adapted from “The Christian Classical Corner,” KKVV Radio Las Vegas, August 2021.)