63 thoughts on “Home Schoolers Beware! Why Proponents of Christian Schools in Michiana Are Out to Destroy the Family”

1. Darryl,

   You will have to help me out here on your objection to Christian School education. I understand the point about homeschooling, having been home schooled (in Michiana!) and my parents faced intense criticism at our Independent baptist church because of their decision.

   At my current Reformed church, the majority of parents either send their children to a traditional Christian school, a classical Christian school or they home school them.Only one or two are public schooled. I have noticed distinct cultural differences between the children depending on their parents choice of education. In the Midwest, churches tend to form around the parents educational choices. You have the public school church, the Christian School church and the Home school church. I guess my question is, do you agree that Christian education (home school or otherwise) is the best option and the one that should be encouraged. Is your main objection that Christian schools tend to try to “Christianize” everything? I do not see this as a worldview thing, since the curriculum my parents chose to use was a secular one. It is more the overall culture that kids are raised in. I am reminded of your quote from Mencken’s dad in regards to Sunday school in that he was not worried about his kids being indoctrinated by Christians since he had them the other six days of the week.

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2. Maybe Pastor Bret would be more at home in the PRC where extraordinary members are now required to Christian school (a decision precipitated by a pastor who had the audacity to remove his from CS in order to home school)?

   http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/09/prca_church_synod_votes_to_req.html

   But if you think it’s hard to advocate home schooling amongst certain theonomists, try advocating for public school amongst the Reformed (cultural and confessional).

   Paroikia, give the dismal two in your church a hug for me. Well, ok, a handshake and a pat on the back. Also, how about being for liberty instead of a particular educational choice? I mean, if the Catholic Church can do it why can’t we:

   Catechism of the Catholic Church:

   2229 As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators.38 Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.

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3. Paroika, I’m opposed to sacred cows, the anti-Hindu in me. But that’s a subject for another post.

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4. Pingback: Yet Another Reason Why a Reformed Two-Kingdoms Ethic is Necessary « Heidelblog

5. **So it comes to this, the sacred responsibility of parents to teach their children becomes for Christian school advocates something as trivial a buying a car made in Detroit. This is a long way from the sphere sovereignty taught by the likes of Abraham Kuyper in which parents do have responsibility for education.**

   This is an obvious misreading of the author’s use of the consumer analogy. His point was not that this is the view of Christian-education proponents, but that it is the view of certain Evangelium contributors. This is clear when the author writes “such a consumerist ‘common realm’ approach to education certainly strikes a discordant note from our historic Reformed ethic.”

   Also, to contend that the CR article “heaps scorn” upon home-schoolers indicates to me that a rather cursory reading of the article was made. Quite to the contrary, the author favorably references Christian home-schooling as a faithful parental response to the biblical mandate to educate their children.

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6. Have you considered that the interpretive skills you find wanting in this piece have been evident in spade by the author of the piece in his reading of 2k arguments? If you want charitable readings here, then it might help to display them elsewhere.

   (BTW, I did write, “okay this might be over the top, an indication that I was up to some paranoid hermeneutics like those of the anti-2k folk. I have yet to see any admission on their side that they might be “over the top.”)

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7. But a review of a publicity piece that offers a little food for the mind of potential and existing donors? Hello!?!

   ..As if a “review” of promotional material doesn’t prove the lengths to which the editor and author will go to try to demean two-kingdom theology, the author’s introduction seals the deal.

   Odd to dismiss the Evangelium as some promotional puff piece. I took the publication at face value as a serious explanation of WSC’s position on Christian education. I prefer to believe that Hart’s colleagues intended to share some serious reflection on the issue.

   …identifying me at least as an adjunct professor, not a professor.

   An adjunct professor is a professor.

   …he even quotes a comment I wrote about teaching American history to a string of interactions about worldview at this blog…[a] quotation from a random comment on a blog would likely not hold up in a court of law, or even an ecclesiastical court.

   The quote in question harmoniously relates to how Hart’s and his colleagues’ NL2k theology impacts a view of Christian education. Publicly documented statements hold up in court every day, no problem. Now one can try to run from it as some “random” comment on a blog, but then when a truckload of other public statements consistent with the first one come out, the “random” defense sort of loses its efficacy.

   ….Such disregard for minor formalities may explain the author’s complete indifference to major questions of jurisdiction. The author seems to agree with the idea that parents are responsible for the education of their children. But then he assumes that parental responsibility is the equivalent of the Christian school…

   …Do the advocates of Christian schools really mean to exert tyranny over Christian parents so that fathers and mothers who educate their children at home are found guilty of providing a non-Reformed education?…

   …But “reviews” like this one heap spoon fulls of scorn upon those parents who sacrifice time, careers, parts of the house, and even standing within the community to insure that their children receive a Christian education.

   Hart might want to read my entire article and the quotes he highlighted once again. My support is for Christian education. Christian “education” is a broader category that encompasses both Christian schools AND Christian homeschools. My respect for homeschoolers found me many years ago crafting a precedent-setting policy that forged a cooperative services relationship between a Christian school and homeschool parents. So homeschoolers will find no scorn from a Christian education supporter like me. Rather they should pay close attention to NL2k “common realm” theory– which is what actually heaps scorn on the foundational reason homeschoolers undertake such laudable sacrifices.

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8. To wit, that an argument for liberty is the same as one for consumerism.

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9. Mark,

   My support is for Christian education. Christian “education” is a broader category that encompasses both Christian schools AND Christian homeschools. My respect for homeschoolers found me many years ago crafting a precedent-setting policy that forged a cooperative services relationship between a Christian school and homeschool parents.

   The thing about advocating one thing indifferent is that is doesn’t necessarily mean to incriminate another. My advocacy for public schooling isn’t built upon an incrimination of parochial or otherwise (so much for your argument that 2K means one shouldn’t advocate for CS).

   But from my experience, those who advocate for CS/HS seem very dependent upon incriminating that which I advocate.

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10. You apparently assume Christian education is a “thing indifferent”, a matter of liberty as you said above. Drs. Kim, Johnson, and Godfrey enumerated some clear statements that Christian education is a necessary thing– a Biblical responsibility. You may find you can advocate either Christian education or public education, but it is done on a basis other than Biblical “necessity”. It could be for pragmatics or other personal preference reasons, or whatever, since this is a liberty of choice issue for you. But if Christian education is biblically necessary, it will naturally result in the “indifferent” view being being incriminated. Eg., advocating male officebearers as a biblical requirement will necessarily implicate those who believe gender a matter “indifferent” to holding office. The examples could go on.

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11. MVDM,

    You assume that Christian education happens best at home or in so called “Christian schools.” Why do you assume that Christian parents cannot properly instruct their children theologically while also sending them to public schools? Since it cannot be shown from Scripture that God requires parents to send them to a Christian school, all we have is anecdote to guide us. And almost a decade of ministry with college students (many the products of Christian school and homeschooling) has shown me that Christian schools often function as incubators for self-righteousness and xenophobia as much as anything. Not universally, of course, but enough to leave an impression. And besides, why get in a twist binding the consciences of Christians on matters of methodology (how to educate your children) instead of principle (that you raise them in the fear and admonition of Christ)?

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12. It seems plain enough that if this isn’t a matter of liberty that certain actions are open to incrimination. And, yes, a definition of terms is kosher. “Christian education” is to creedalize and catechize, and this is indeed a “biblical necessity.” But it hardly seems obvious that “We believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth” is the same as “Two and two are four not only because they are but also because God says so.”

    It might be more clarifying to speak of “Christian instruction” instead of “Christian education.” The former is biblically necessary, the latter liberty. And if the latter isn’t liberty then day schooling is on par with the three marks. And if it’s on par with the three marks then the PRCs are on the right track by requiring extraordinary members to it the way all members are required to the means of grace. Are you really prepared to suggest a fourth mark of the true church? I wouldn’t mind a fourth mark so much, but I’d vote for it being along the lines of worship

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13. Agree being precise with our terminology is helpful, but I’m not sure one can really achieve a helpful or substantive distinction between Christian “education” and “instruction”. I suspect the WSC profs I mentioned above who wrote in the Evangelium would use the terms interchangeably. I do not believe a 4th mark needs to be carved out, since Christian education flows out from or is a direct application of each of the existing 3 marks.

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14. Mark,

    If the three men at WSC are using the terms interchangeably–which is to say that catechism is the same as curriculum–then what exactly is your beef with WSC? They would seem to be agreeing with you.

    Agreed that creedal instruction flows out of from the existing three marks. But if education (which is to say, also curriculum) flows similarly, then that must mean you conceive of my public schooling on par with her second child out of wedlock, his stealing and their violence against sola fide. My jaw dropped when I was told I’d likely never be called to elder in a certain PCA on those grounds, but to suggest I’d be disciplined for sending my kids to MSU (or Notre Dame) tops that.

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15. In the 2k theory, parents have responsibility for educating their children. That means parents of believing and non-believing stripe. That looks to me like a common realm theory because the family is a creation, not a redemption, ordinance. So I suspect, without a common realm theory, you are content to let Christians remove children from unbelieving homes.

    Boy, you guys are scary.

    Or could it be you like to bark a lot, only to make your rivals in the URC look bad. (Funny how you’re making a CRC pastor look good. What’s up with that?) So if Christian education is required by Scripture (as you construe Christian education), have you ever brought charges against Christian parents who send their children to public schools?

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16. Pat, don’t you see, the Bible requires it because MVDM says the Bible does. Don’t confound him with facts or ideas, like the one that until the rise of common schooling no Reformed church even countenanced the idea of “Christian education” aside from catechesis. They were even content to live with illiteracy. Calvin’s academy wasn’t, you know, for kids. It was for seminarians.

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17. The summary answer is the principle can be violated/contradicted/undone by one’s choice of methodology. Christian parents should strive for the principle and the methodology working harmoniously together. State another way, the content of the education is primary, the methodolgy secondary, yet they are related. If God’s Word shapes and directs our children’s learning in all areas, then it should be fairly clear why Christian schools or Christian homeschools {or some other method of Christian education that is yet to come–cyber school perhaps?} is a proper methodology to fit with the principle.

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18. Mr. Roach et al,

    God requires 24/7/365(6) Christian education for our children. I dun read this somewheres:

    “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

    Now, how do the government run schools stack up? Do they teach the commandments of Yahweh morning noon and night, waking and sleeping, at table or at play? Are the commandments of God posted and taught in all classrooms? Does the Bible form the basis of all instruction? If not, then parents CANNOT legitimately delegate their personal and parental responsibility to a government school without abdicating the same responsibility to the exact degree that the government school deviates from God’s word. The EXACT SAME applies to Christian and home schooling, too. QED.

    As children grow in knowledge and discernment, opportunities open up to plunder the knowledge of the Egyptians. Thus, there appears to me to be some basis for utilizing non-Christian education much later in a child’s life. But I think that will be judged child by child, case by case.

    Also, as I understand it, DGH, Calvin set up schools in Geneva for all ages, from what we call primary right up through seminary level.

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19. Tim,

    Your premise seems to be that schools have at least as much ordination over children as parents. Don’t look now, but that’s as modern an outlook as John Dewey. And that’s not very Protestant. But having, ironically enough, just come from school conferences, it is interesting to note that the secularists have long since given up on their transformationalist notions of education, while the religionists yet cling. Ok, there might still be some rumblings, but when it comes to grasping how much authority I have over my brood, give me a secularist any day over a religionist.

    But how does one know when there is “basis for utilizing non-Christian education much later in a child’s life”? Is it the magic age of 18 or 22? And, to the extent that education is a child’s vocation, why are the vocational rules (evidently) different for them versus adult believers? That is to say, why may I work in secular vocation but they must inhabit a sacred one? My hunch is that there seems to be some odd correspondance between natural and supernatural development on your part, such that a child’s inability to understand algebra indicates something about her grasp of God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, sin, grace, faith, etc. But if that’s true, then wouldn’t new adult believers have to quit their secular vocations and seek sacred ones, at least until they too reached that magic stage where faith is no longer, presumably, “assailable”?

    Mark,

    So far, you’re just theorizing. Put your money where your mouth is and spit it out: anything other than CS/HS is worthy of discipline.

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20. Zrim, your response is quite typical for you. You confuse categories, miss the point, engage in guilt by (false) association and don’t even get around to handling the actual point of the post to which you’re responding. BRAVO!

    First, you say, “Your premise seems to be that schools have at least as much ordination over children as parents.” Ordination? What? Do you mean authority? If so, at least as much? What in tarnation are you trying to say? In any event, here’s what I’m saying: Parents may delegate some of their responsibility of full-time Christian edcation, but they cannot abdicate it without sin. You’ve managed to confuse a very simple notion.

    Second, you erroneously state, “The secularists have long since given up on their transformationalist notions of education, while the religionists yet cling. Ok, there might still be some rumblings…” Some rumblings?!? You must live on a different planet, feller. Wow. Honestly, I think historic Christianity places a pretty high premium on education, especially the Reformed variety… you know, YOUR tradition, right?

    New adult believers are not children under the covenantal authority and nurture of their parents. And there is no magic age… as I said, case by case. Zrim, try to keep the categories straight, if you can.

    More to the point, you have not yet managed to touch the Scriptural proof that Christian parenting and education is FULL TIME, a responsibility that cannot be abdicated without disobedience to God’s law, that is, sin. Dewey didn’t say that; Yahweh did.

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21. I have noticed in these discussions that Deuteronomy 6 is appealed to as the basis, but are there any indications that the New Testament follows this pattern? In other words, when Paul preached and established churches among the Gentiles, is there any instance in which education is brought up?
    What do we do with the God-fearers like Cornelius. He did not follow the Law of God (no circumcision, no dietary restrictions). Peter preached; Cornelius and his household believed and were baptized. Am I to understand that Cornelius (if he had children in his home) would have immediately or some time down the road changed the methodology of his children’s education to conform to a Christian approach? Would he, likely a wealthy man, have fired his pagan tutor in place of a Christian one?

    And how does one define Christian education precisely? That is such a broad category. In my hometown we have a number of choices when it comes to Christian education. Which one do I choose? The most Reformed? What does that even mean?

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22. And how do Christian schools stack up? Do they teach the commandments of the Lord morning, noon, and night?

    If that’s your prooftext and your application, you are living on a different planet.

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23. As Zrim asks, if you can use professors at WSC against me, then what’s your problem with WSC? Why write the review? Would it have anything to do with a certain 2-k hunt in which your pal, Professor Kloosterman is engaged?

    And please don’t use the inflammatory language of “liberty of choice.” We have a phrase in Reformed Christianity — you know, the tradition you are trying to defend — that is not anywhere near “pro-choice.” It is liberty of conscience, something with which you seem to be remarkably unfamiliar. In which case, the only Christian educatiion required of all Christians is catechesis. Not every Christian needs to know math, Shakespeare, or chemistry (unless of course we view the church as a graduate seminar at the Free University). Christians certainly don’t need to know law. That is, they don’t need to know these subjects to serve God in their vocations.

    But you are committed to a very middle-class, time bound understanding of what education is, with no awareness of the categories of vocation, Christian liberty, or even the content of a Chrisitan education (since you equate Bible and doctrine with the three R’s). And you claim to know the Reformed foundations for education? Please hide the women and especially the children if you’re anywhere near the school.

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24. What’s this all about? I come here for a little peace and tranquility and get hit in the face with a banana cream pie -just as if I walked on to the set of ‘The Great Race’.

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25. Tim,

    First, the point about ordination/authority is that for every eight hours spent at school (of whatever variety) they don’t compare to ten minutes with mom and pop. But the theonomic premise is that the day school really does make, or co-make, human beings. That’s modernism. Protestantism says that homes (believing or not) make human beings (for better or ill), schools merely teach them. Think of it as another sola, as in sola familia. Modernity makes much over-realized hay about just what education actually does. Protestantism puts it into proper perspective, letting it retain its dignity without over doing the stakes.

    Second, I’m skeptical about your huffing over what you think is going on in public education, since I’m pretty sure you spend no actual time in its corridors. I understand its fashionable in our Reformed enclaves to conceive of public education as the tool of the devil to greater or lesser degrees. But if you bothered to spend any serious time in and around it you’d realize that, for whatever amount of transformative modernity that might cling to it, where it really matters (the classroom) all anyone is trying to do is get Suzie to nail her 3 Rs. You’re engaging a phantom of what you think happens in public schools.

    Third, I agree that Christian parenting and instruction, like pagan parenting and instruction, are full time jobs. Heck, I even think it happens when we don’t think it is happening, even when we are not directly catechizing. But, talk about confusing categories, I think you need to show how catechism is the same as curriculum.

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26. if you can use professors at WSC against me, then what’s your problem with WSC?

    If you had read my review, you’d know the answer. But I’ll simplify it for you: what is clearly affirmed by the right hand is undermined by the NL2k left hand.

    Would it have anything to do with a certain 2-k hunt..

    This sounds like Doug Wilson responding to his critics.

    And please don’t use the inflammatory language of “liberty of choice.”

    Given the title and language of your post, do you see how your appeal to refrain from inflammatory language rings a bit hollow? Yet, perhaps you can explain further how “liberty of choice” differs significantly from “liberty of conscience”, which according to Zrim allows a freedom of choice between Christian education vs. non-Christian education.

    And you claim to know the Reformed foundations for education? Please hide the women and especially the children if you’re anywhere near the school.

    If you believe my understanding of Reformed foundations for education so wrong, then be consistent and publicly pass the same warning on to the students under the tutelage of your colleagues Profs. Kim and Godfrey.

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27. Matt,

    Excuse the long post, but your questions prompt some interesting considerations from W.A. Strong in his Children in the Early Church.

    “The early Christians lived in a society whose values were inimical to them in many respects. The pagan society around them was underpinned by a religion which they considered false, if not demonic; it was characterized by moral values they could not share; and it was entered into by an education steeped in paganism. So we might expect the early Christians to try to protect their young by providing some alternative form of education which would keep them free from the temptations and snares of the pagan world in which they lived. They had, after all, the example of the Jewish synagogue schools. But, rather surprisingly, the Christians did not take that course for several centuries. There was no fiercer critic of paganism than Tertullian (c. 160-c.225), but even he accepted the necessity for young people to share in the education on offer at pagan schools. His chosen image to describe the Christian pupil’s situation as he read the pagan authors whose work formed the ancient syllabus, was that of someone offered poison to drink, but refusing to take it (On Idolatry 10).

    “The young Origen (born c.185 AD)…is said to have received extra instruction in the Scriptures from his father, Leonides, each day before he set out for his secular schooling (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.2.7f.)…Here was a devout Christian father, later to be martyred for the gospel, who was nonetheless willing for his son to attend school, and follow the normal curriculum of the pagan classics. Origen himself became an enthusiast for secular education as a preparation for Biblical study, and in later life urged it on those who came to him for instruction (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.18.4: NE 192).

    “We hear of no Christian schooling outside the home in the early centuries. A century after Clement had written to Corinthian fathers and husbands to ‘instruct the young in the fear of God,’ the same pattern of family responsibility can be seen in Origen’s Alexandria. Christian parents were still content for their children to share a common education with their pagan neighbors, and the church was slow to copy the synagogue in providing an alternative pattern of schooling. Even when John Chrysostom (c.347-407) wrote the first Christian treatise on the education of children (On the Vainglory of the World and on the Education of Children), he addressed himself to parents, and said nothing about sending children to specifically Christian schools. The first Christian schools seem to have been those founded by the monasteries from the fourth century onwards (Marrou 1965 472-84).

    “It is worth asking why Christians did not take the opportunity to create their own schools. If we take the comparison with the Jewish community, one reason must have been that there was no need for Christian children to learn a sacred language; their Jewish contemporaries had to learn Hebrew. Those who spoke Greek could read the New Testament in its original language, and the Old Testament in Greek translation. And the New Testament Scriptures were rapidly translated into the various languages of the Mediterranean. Further, Christians did not see themselves as culturally distinct from their neighbours. An anonymous writer of the late second century expressed eloquently how Christians were in the world, but not of it:

    For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by country, or by speech, or by dress. For they do not dwell in cities of their own, or use a different language, or practise a peculiar speech…But while they dwell in Greek or barbarian cities according as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the land in clothing and food, and other matters of daily life, yet the condition of citizenship which they exhibit is wonderful, and admittedly strange…Every foreign land is to them a fatherland, and every fatherland a foreign land. (Epistle to Diognetus 6.1-5: NE 55).

    “To set up their own separate educational provision would have been to withdraw from the common life they shared with their pagan neighbours. And, while they recognized the dangers and allure of paganism, the early Christians saw no need to do that. They let their children ‘share in the instruction which is in Christ’ (1 Clement), and they allowed them access to education for the wider pagan society. They were not trying to create a Christian ghetto, but to be salt and light in their world. Their attitude to their children’s education was an expression of this open yet critical attitude.”

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28. Correction: this sentence:

    *This sounds like Doug Wilson responding to his critics.*

    …should not have been italicized, as those were not Hart’s words, but mine:

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29. Yah, vell, the first Christians weren’t Dutch immigrants to the mid-West.

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30. Thanks Zrim.
    That really put into words what I was thinking. Perhaps they had a better understanding of 2K then they are often given credit for.

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31. Funny, because your stance on Christian schools undermines your claim to know the Reformed tradition. It’s one thing for you to think Christian schools valuable and wise. It’s another thing to assert that people who don’t support them are a threat to the faith. But thanks for more evidence of how neo-Calvinism so easily veers into fundamentalism.

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32. DGH, I agree that the bar is high. I see where I’ve failed as a parent and where Christians schools routinely fail. However, my parenting and Christian schools, even when failing, differ from Government schools that, by definition, ARE NOT ALLOWED to do what’s required. Possibly, one can find a situation where the principal and teachers are all Christians and education can be moved back toward a biblical basis, but I don’t think it can ever arrive.

    Home education and Christian school can, on principle, education in keeping with divine dictates of education. Government schools, on principle, do not and basically can not. That’s a very significant difference.

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33. A couple things, Zrim.

    Your ad hominem compels me to offer my resume of humanistic education, which is silly. I went to a government high school and university. My wife went to the same university and was trained as a teacher in that godless place (Western Washington University). She worked for two years as a gubment teacher and then two years a teacher in a small, conservative, Reformed Christian school (NIGHT AND DAY DIFFERENCE). So, when you say I need to spend sometime… buddy, I know something of what I’m talking about. I’m sure you have some experience, too, so I don’t want to downplay that, nor do I want to assert that all government schools are cut from the same cloth. I do want to assert that the 3 Rs often get far less attention that we’d like and social agendas are very common. Further, (and this far more to the point) government schools are set up to be non-Christian, thus (as mentioned above to DGH) they ordinarily be a legitimate option for education according to what God requires, certainly earlier in life.

    Education doesn’t make people… again, Zrim, you’re making me guilty by false association. I’ve never read ANY theonomist that asserts what you say of them. Enough red herrings.

    On to categories: Curriculum means course of study, usually referring to a planned out route through the material to be covered. Catechesis is teaching (esp. by mouth). Curriculum is an overview and guide through all the material and catechesis is the teaching of the material.

    Here’s the point: what drives both catechesis and curriculum? Following Van Til, are there brute facts? The humanistic education I got in HS and in the University asserted that there was. “Fact are just facts. Just teachin’ the fact, here.” (You might recall the opening lines to Hard Times from Dickens). My humanistic educators, however, still defaulted back (as was necessarily) to offering me a humanistic framework to understand the facts. A “Christian” curriculum and catechesis may well teach the same “facts” (may not, too, as “facts” are often generated out of thin air), but will provide a biblical view of men and things as a framework to understand the facts (curriculum) and will teach each item clearly in light of that framework (catechesis). E.g., my wife was just teaching our children about the physical universe with emphasis on our solar system and special emphasis on our own dear planet. She started with creation, and consistently referenced Ps 8 and the like. She taught what God has done in creation and why; where we fit into it all; the fall and redemption in Christ. She taught all that from the solar system. This is an example of curriculum and catechesis guided by the Bible. It is Christian education. It’s what God requires of us and it’s what our covenant children deserve. Government schools can’t hold a candle to it.

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34. Tim,

    My resume mirrors yours more or less. Add coming from a line of public school advocates and teaching in both public and church affiliated schools for a spell.

    But the difference seems to be our premises. You seem to think public schools are to be faulted for being deliberately secular. I think they are to be commended for it. You seem to think religious understanding should be nurtured in curriculum. But I don’t want anybody other than me (and my pastor) nurturing religious devotion in my children. Being deliberately secular protects my right to do this and helps resist the co-opting of my ordained authority over my brood to those not so ordained. You seem to think this means I think that curriculum is a project in brute facts. But I think that while the project of education is primarily intellectual, it is secondarily (but no less importantly) affective. In other words, this jazz about “brute facts” and “neutrality” is impossible. You seem to think that the affective dimension of a child’s education is only legitimate when it is deliberately Christian, and when it isn’t it deconstructs Christian piety and is therefore illegitimate. But I actually believe in things like general revelation and that un/believers have equal access to what is right, true and good; I believe that pagans can nurture what we hold as common virtues. In fact, they can outpace believers as far as this goes. But I hold no illusions: if we all have equal access to what is right, true and good we all have an equal shot at screwing up. And that happens. What I find quizzical is the idea that just because the pagans screw up sometimes that we should run to fellow believers to make up for it. But sinners sin because they are sinners, not because they aren’t believers.

    You seem to think that catechesis and curriculum have to be matched up in order to catechesis to take. But I think catechesis can actually be sharpened when curriculum challenges some of its premises. You seem to think that those who aren’t convinced that curriculum and catechesis have to be happily married for catechesis to take are violating their covenantal duties. I simply think that those who think a happy marriage is necessary for catechesis to take are missing a few things.

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35. We have to distinguish between the pre-Christian, Christian, and post-Christian eras. If it’s true that we live in a post-Christian time/culture then we would seem to have most in common with the Christians of the early church who lived in predominantly non-Christian culture until well after the legalization of Christianity.

    The testimony of the Treatise (not epistle!) by “Mathetes” (possibly Polycarp) to Diognetus (c. 150s), that the Christians had no distinct culture, no distinct language, etc, i.e., they were Jews or Judaizers (Ebionites) is both fascinating and telling about how most of them related to the prevailing culture. The had no transformationalist agenda. One simply cannot find the early Christians (including the New Testament Christians) talking about “redeeming” anything but sinners, Nor does one find them talking about “transforming” the culture. Constantine himself merely legalized Christianity (and funded a few church buildings) and restored property stolen from Christians. Most of the decree is actually civil religion, In fact, it was explicitly pluralist in theology and with respect to religious toleration. Constantine, at that point anyway, seems to have been taking out fire insurance against offending any of the gods who might be able to bless the empire.

    Much of the the discussion of two-kingdoms and Christian schooling seems to come from those who either don’t understand or accept that Christendom is over or who want to restore Christendom but as a matter of NT exegesis where do we see clear, unambiguous, unequivocal evidence that the apostolic church sett up distinctly Christian schools? This is not an argument against Christian schools but those of who who apparently don’t defend them correctly are wrong, where exactly is the biblical evidence to say that post-Israelite, post-theocratic, NT church established a pattern of distinctively Christian schools to avoid contaminating their children with paganism? This is not an argument for sending Christian children to state or private “secular” schools that are hostile to Christian theism but if we’re going to accuse other Christians of sinning because they question the Afscheiding-Doleantie-Neo-Kuyperian-CSI approach to Christian schooling, then shouldn’t the biblical evidence be pretty overwhelming?

    Lacking such evidence perhaps this question is better discussed not as a matter of confession or sin but as a a matter of wisdom and prudence? Is it wise to send one’s children to be educated by those who are hostile to the faith when there are alternatives? Probably not but that’s not the same thing as violating the confession or sinning.

    The URC CO requires elders to promote “God-Centered schooling” but it doesn’t stipulate how that is to be done and thus far in the life of the URCs that’s been a matter of Christian liberty.

    Our confessions do not teach Christian schools per se. Ursinus says that HC 103 is about what we today would call “seminary.” I should like to see the case for making Christian schools a mark of the church if only because that would be a surprise to de Bres and the the early Dutch Reformed churches. The point of the marks is to say: This is how you can tell a true church from a sect or a false church. Are the proponents of Christian schools (of which I’m one) really willing to say, however, that having not only the “right view” of Christian schools but also the right rationale and defense for them is of the essence of the church? That would seem like a pretty difficult case to make.

    Such a claim is also odd since, as I recall, Mr van der Molen used to argue with some vigor that the Federal Vision wasn’t really a threat to the United Reformed Churches (despite the fact that we’ve had two notorious proponents of the FV in our ministry who’ve since left to unite with the CRE; folk might also like to know that one of our classes just dealt with another FV case in the last year) and that it was a tempest in a tea pot. Interesting, I say, because 1) two synods of the URCs apparently disagreed with him by twice adopting three points on sola fide and the imputation of active obedience in response to the FV and by adopting the Nine Points against the FV in 2007 and 2) the FV question gets much closer, than the question of Christian schools, to all three of the marks of the church that we actually confess, namely, the “pure preaching of the gospel,” the “pure administration of the sacraments,” and the exercise of church discipline.

    Mr van der Molen was unwilling to go to war over the FV (check out the old discussions on the Yahoo URCNA list) but he seems quite willing to go to war over not over whether Christian education/schooling is to be promoted by over how Christian education should be taught and defended. Thus, he seems like a latitudinarian on the gospel and a precisionist on Christian schooling.

    As a historical matter, the onset of the Enlightenment/Modernity created a crisis and what we think of as distinctively “Christian schools” were a response to that crisis and they became a defining part of the Afscheiding/Doleantie ecclesiastical-social culture and were a defining part of the Christian Reformed Church. Indeed, Christian schools were one of the principal reasons for the creation of the CRC.

    I notice that the most recent issue of the Christian Renewal has an story about the death of a well-known Presbyterian minister who was also a member of a secret society. Here was another sticking point between the CRC and the RCA in the 19th century. it’s interesting to see that, according to the CR, it’s apparently okay to be a lodge member but it’s not okay to defend Christian schooling on the basis of wisdom. So one of the traditional marks of the CRC has gone by the wayside in favor of another?

    The interesting historical thing here is that the commitment to Christian schools in the GKN and the CRC did not prevent either from losing its confessional identity, from becoming first broadly evangelical and, in the GKN, from moving quickly toward the mainline whither the CRC is headed.

    This doesn’t mean that Christian schools are wrong but it does suggest that the hope invested in them, at least in the GKN and the CRC, has not “paid off” exactly, i.e., it hasn’t produced the intended results. Given the track record of the Christian school movement in the CRCs I’m a little puzzled by the temperature of the rhetoric about Christians schools and the invective used toward those who are defending Christian schools but apparently not defending them correctly.

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36. That should be “they were NOT Jews or Judaizers….”

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37. Alright, Zrim. That last post was excellent. I think you’ve nailed some fundamental issues and done it in fine form.

    A couple distinctions that I think might help: 1) Stark contrasts are easier to see than dim ones. In this specific regard, I’d rather have my children see anti-Christians than nominal or perverted Christianity. This is especially true early on when their discernment is not as sharp. 2) I also believe in common grace and general revelation. Pagan’s have often seen deeper into issues and with more precision than believers. Thus, I value non-Christian insight and scholarship.

    As these come to touch our covenantal responsibilities of education and rearing of our children, 1) they must be trained in the truth before they’re exposed to lies. The easier lies (starker contrasts) should come first and more difficult ones tackled later. 2) We should remember that general revelation only reveals so much; it was not intended to reveal God our Redeemer, thus non-Christians are unable to see the whole truth of God (Jn 3:3). That said, we should avail ourselves of non-Christian insight and scholarship, repent of our dullness, make their insight our own, and teach it within a Christian rubric. Which moves me to the more important point.

    You observed, “You seem to think that those who aren’t convinced that curriculum and catechesis have to be happily married for catechesis to take are violating their covenantal duties.”This is exactly right. Zrim, what part of your child’s education and rearing doesn’t fall under this: “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates“? That’s an honest question. Is the command here apply to the education of our children? If so, how do government curricula and catechesis which deny Yahweh and his commandments, but *necessarily* substitutes some other deity and his/her/their commandments fit in?

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38. Pingback: On Precision and Latitude « Heidelblog

39. Dr. Clark, thanks for taking the time to write all that. It was very helpful. I, for one, am not a proponent of Christian schools as such (nor am I necessarily opposed to them), but I am a proponent of Christian education in the context of covenantal nurture and child rearing. In your mind, can you reconcile the biblical requirement of Christian nurture with the delegation of education (especially of young, undiscerning children) to enemies of God? Zrim and I have been working on this above, but I don’t know that we’ve made much in the way of real progress! Thanks for your time.
    -Tim

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40. Tim,

    Demonizing all non-Christian schools (public and private) as “enemies of God” probably precludes any resolution. If every teacher in every public school is a Canaanite and every Christian is an Israelite then we’re called to holy war against the pagans.

    Part of the problem with your appeal to Deut 6 is that it fails to account for the progress of revelation and redemption. The theocracy is fulfilled. It’s gone. Ended. Caput. Finito. The proper application of Deut 6 is not pagans as you have done but to my own sins. The Canaanite without, under Moses, is now the Canaanite within, if you will.

    There is no holy war in the NT. Jesus fulfilled the holy war. God executed his wrath on Jesus who was crucified outside the city walls, who became ritually unclean for us. Now, in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile.

    This helps explain why, in the NT, there is not the same sort of language about pagans. The only time phrases such as “Gentile dogs” are used they are quotations from the judaizers.

    Second, as I’ve argued repeatedly on the HB, “common” does not equal “neutral.” This facile equation of the common with “brute facts” is fallacious. According to Van Til, all of reality is interpreted by God but that doesn’t mean that we have nothing, on any level, in common with pagans. We interpret the meaning of reality differently from pagans as we should! But we both live in God’s world and we learn from pagans all the time. Van Til wrote at least three books on common grace. The theonomists/theocrats, however, would like us to forget about that aspect of Kuyper’s thought and legacy.

    See this post: http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/common-is-not-neutral/

    Third, there are Christians teaching in the public schools. There are Christian public school administrators. On the scheme proposed by some of the critics, would it be a sin to teach math in the public school?

    That said, from all I can see and from all I experienced in 16 years of public school education there is a considerable degree of hostility in non-Christian schools that borders on or has become secularist. The evidence for this hostility seems overwhelming. Where such secularist (the adjective secular, however, is perfectly good and shouldn’t be used as a pejorative) hostility to Christianity reigns it probably isn’t wise to send children to be educated for 8-10 hours a day by teachers who are ideologically committed to eradicating Christianity and to attacking children for professing Christian faith.

    Does that mean that tax-paying Christian parents cannot make use of special services (e.g., for the developmentally delayed) or participate in a charter school program? I’m not prepared to bring up on charges someone for disagreeing with me about how their children are educated. The URC CO requires us to promote God-centered schooling but it doesn’t require us to achieve a given outcome. We’re not Arminians or semi-Pelagians or Pelagians are we? The outcome is up to the sovereign providence of God.

    Finally, even acknowledging that the secularist educational establishment is largely hostile to Christian theism it is not possible to paint the entire secular (note the distinction) educational enterprise as “enemies of God.” We simply don’t know that, do we?

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41. Thanks, again, Dr. Clark. I’m in agreement with much of what you’ve written, puzzling over some of it, and appreciative of all of it.

    I have but one follow-up question: How does Yahweh’s command for us to be diligent to teach our children his commandments get transformed into making war on the Canaanites? Now, I get the shifting covenantal context: I realize we were not baptized into Moses, but into Christ; that we are Gentiles who were formerly afar off and have been brought near to the commonwealth of Israel and the covenants of promise. I’d never advocate holy war with physical weapons, but I still think we wage relentless spiritual war, not just on our own flesh, but also on the world and the devil. Still, the command we’re looking at is not one of waging war on Canaanites, but of the education of covenant children with a strong dose of antithesis, which certainly still exists.

    Have a great weekend and especially a great Lord’s Day!

    -Tim

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42. Tim,

    … what part of your child’s education and rearing doesn’t fall under this: “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates“? That’s an honest question. Is the command here apply to the education of our children? If so, how do government curricula and catechesis which deny Yahweh and his commandments, but *necessarily* substitutes some other deity and his/her/their commandments fit in?

    First, let me say that, from my own lifelong experience in education (sacred but mostly secular) in various capacities, I simply don’t share this premise that public education has on its plate the explicit goal to deconstruct Christianity. I see this in RSC’s post as well, and I find it very wide the mark. If experience counts for anything, I have never experienced personally or on behalf on anyone blatant violence toward their faith. It’s not as if I am so naïve that I don’t understand there are, what I call “horror stories” about explicit antagonism toward faith. But not only are these extraordinary realities (which ought not to govern ordinary regard), but I believe they are more responsibly explained as instances where people and system have simply screwed up. I know it may be tempting to deem them persecutions, and they may be, but I suppose I take the less extraordinary view that mistakes have been made that need correction.

    To your direct question, I don’t see how the command to catechize my covenant children applies to their curriculum. It is my belief that what abides is a very modern conception of education, such that the command given to parents is taken as co-equal for their children’s’ educators. We don’t seem to require this of any of their other vocations: we don’t require their friends to nurture faith, or their entertainment, or their babysitters, or their scout leaders, nor any other facet of culture in which they are involved. Why their teachers? The only thing I can come up with is that we actually believe education is co-equal with parenting. I find that curious to say the least.

    The command utilizes more images of the home. Mr. VanVanderVan doesn’t “sit at home, walk along the road, lie down and get up” with my children. I do that. They also don’t share his doorpost. That’s mine.

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43. tim, this is to your post above, which is ineligible for further in-line replies.

    “That said, we should avail ourselves of non-Christian insight and scholarship, repent of our dullness, make their insight our own, and teach it within a Christian rubric.”

    Repent of our dullness? The Reformed faith isn’t consistent with slothfulness, but to assume that a non-Christian discovering some insight (in this case, about anything) necessitates a sinful dullness on the part of the surrounding Christians places Christians under a Law that resembles a US Army slogan more than freedom in Christ. Not to mention that some of us just aren’t capable in many areas, if any.

    What does this responsibility of excellence, for lack of a better term, look like? Christian plumbing has been discussed ad nauseam and doesn’t appear to be much other than fulfilling your contracts and not killing/stealing from/sleeping with your customers, which also describes every irreligious plumbing experience I know of. But this is about ‘Christian scholarship’, so:

    Bertrand Russell was no theonomist. Assuming everything that Paul Johnson (also without theonomic standards) wrote about Russell is true, how do you Christianize Russell’s paradox? Do you presume to improve on it? If you had an option of sending your children to learn mathematical logic from Russell, would you avail yourself of it? I suspect strongly not, but where is the Christian alternative? In what journal was it published?

    I don’t doubt that your motives are laudable in trying to instill a definitively Christian interpretation of the solar system’s arrangement as part of a science education, but if Christian heliocentricism is just the heliocentric model coupled with a reading of Psalm 8, then I think the rhetoric over distinctively Christian education is overblown at best.

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44. Mike K.: brilliant! I’d take math from you.

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45. homeschooling is not a contraceptive.

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46. Clark’s post could justify a much lengthier response, but given the direction he’s taken this discussion, I’ll address just some key portions of his entry which are italicized, followed by my response.

    …where do we see clear, unambiguous, unequivocal evidence that the apostolic church sett up distinctly Christian schools?

    The issue is Scriptural normative patterns for Christian parents to provide Christian education in all areas of learning.

    This is not an argument against Christian schools but…

    That “but” is not making much of an argument *for* Christian education either.

    …where exactly is the biblical evidence to say that post-Israelite, post-theocratic, NT church established a pattern of distinctively Christian schools to avoid contaminating their children with paganism?

    You should take up your exegetical objections with your WSC colleagues who wrote on the Reformed understanding of the duty of Christian parents, to wit:

    ..“[t]he education of Christians in every subject—philosophy, literature, history, music, sociology, political science, economics, architecture, engineering, chemistry, physics—belongs in the context of the biblical worldview that traces all things to the sovereign Creator.”—Prof. Dennis Johnson.

    “Since education is not neutral at any point, but either glorifies God or rejects him, Christian parents must seek a Christian education for their children.” –Dr. Robert Godfrey.

    “…All disciplines, not only science and math but also the humanities and the arts, must be seen within the framework of a Creator who created all things for his own glory. All of life, then, is interpreted through the lens of God and the coherence he brings to all reality. That is why we decided to send our children to a Christian school and why I serve on the board of Covenant College….We firmly believe that God has given us as parents the responsibility to raise and educate our children ‘in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.’” –Dr. Julius Kim.

    It would be good to see you clearly affirm these statements, without qualifications.

    This is not an argument for sending Christian children to state or private “secular” schools that are hostile to Christian theism …

    Now you protest too much.

    Is it wise to send one’s children to be educated by those who are hostile to the faith when there are alternatives? Probably not …

    “Probably not”. This qualifier fits with some contributions in the Evangelium, where the NL2k liberty of choice signals to Christian parents the possible option of sending children to be educated by those hostile to the faith even when there are alternatives.

    The URC CO requires elders to promote “God-Centered schooling” but it doesn’t stipulate how that is to be done and thus far in the life of the URCs that’s been a matter of Christian liberty.

    This is obfuscation. My critique is not about methodology of Christian education, as you and Hart wrongly suggest. A key issue is whether education of covenant children is to be shaped and normed by Scripture. The URC CO doesn’t countenance elders promoting the possibility that children should be educated in schools that are hostile to the Christian faith.

    Our confessions do not teach Christian schools per se.

    But they teach Christian education per quod. Our Church Order, built on Scripture and the principles of our confessions, teach Christian education. See your colleagues’ quotes above.

    Such a claim is also odd since, as I recall, Mr van der Molen used to argue with some vigor that the Federal Vision wasn’t really a threat to the United Reformed Churches…
    Mr van der Molen was unwilling to go to war over the FV (check out the old discussions on the Yahoo URCNA list) …Thus, he seems like a latitudinarian on the gospel and a precisionist on Christian schooling.

    This is puerile ad hominem intended to smear me and distract the reader from the topic. But I’ll go down memory lane here for a moment. The pre-Synod ’07 discussion arose over a specific overture that asked for the adoption of another denomination’s study report on Norman Shepard. The argument I made with “vigor” was that your rhetoric in support of that overture was unjustifiably inflammatory and it did not provide a sufficient rationale for its adoption. I argued the URC should perform its own careful study of the issue, rather than adopt another denomination’s report. Synod ’07 agreed with my argument, the overture’s request was defeated, and Synod appointed its own study of the issue. That study committee has now produced a well-crafted report which will be presented to Synod 2010. Also, you must be unaware of the work I did in my church teaching about the errors of the FV. I even used some of your material. Naturally, these facts would get in the way of casting FV aspersions.

    …but he seems quite willing to go to war over not over whether Christian education/schooling is to be promoted by over how Christian education should be taught and defended.
    

    I repeat: the critique is not about *how* Christian education is to be carried out. It is directed to natural law /common realm theory, which strikes at a root reason for it to be carried out *at all*. My review of the Evangelium made that very clear, so your omission of that essential point must be deliberate. What is also clear is that Christian education is but just one of many areas of Reformed confessional piety and practice that is affected by this amalgam theology.

    …the commitment to Christian schools in the GKN and the CRC did not prevent either from losing its confessional identity ….This doesn’t mean that Christian schools are wrong but it does suggest that the hope invested in them, at least in the GKN and the CRC, has not “paid off” exactly, ….

    As go the churches, so go the schools. It’s one reason why serious examination of NL2k and its far reaching implications is necessary. You might plead that NL2k is a “secondary issue”, but the church throughout history has faced errors on primary, secondary, and tertiary fronts.

    …I’m a little puzzled by the temperature of the rhetoric about Christians schools and the invective used toward those who are defending Christian schools but apparently not defending them correctly.

    What’s troubling is the unwillingness to defend Christian education without NL2k “common realm” qualifications. Your response here only confirms that the critique is on target. I suspect that’s why you feel the discussion temperature rising.

    On that score, puzzlement over supposed invective and heated temperature rings hollow from the one who is wielding the rhetorical flamethrower. You’re quick to appeal to the 9th commandment in response to criticism, yet you don’t restrain your own habit of ad hominem attacks, e.g., “Theonomist!” “Theocrat!” “ignorant ass!” “wacko!”. So I expected to receive some of them after writing the review, and I haven’t been disappointed.

    But Dr. Clark, you’ve hit a new low with your “latitudinarian-on-the-gospel” charge.

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47. Mark Van Der Molen, You have not shown how the “common realm” theory undermines Reformed faith, you have not shown any exegetical case for Christian education across all spectrums of learning. In fact, your argument flies in the face of Daniel and his learning in Chaldeon schools, something that Dennis Johnson cites in his article. Funny how you cite him against Clark sometimes, not in others.

    In fact, all you do is object to the 2k perspective because you disagree and because it is outside your experience. And you object when people object. But I haven’t seen a case made yet.

    As for common realms, isn’t Indiana common realm? Or do URC attorneys get special privileges?

    Your argument simply doesn’t hold together, aside from your disagreement.

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48. Mark,

    The intellectual tensions you imagine to exist with the faculty exist solely within your fevered imagination. Yes, there is, within the faculty, a range of ways of speaking about these issues but there is also fundamental unity. We are all committed to Christian education. Indeed, your unfortunate, uncharitable, partisan, and misleading caricature of the seminary’s approach to Christian eduction and Christian schooling not withstanding we all continue to advance the cause of Christian education and Christian schooling.

    Your post here and your many other internet posts, like the CR hit piece, give no indication of having the slightest understanding of the historic Reformed doctrine of natural law. Evidently you’ve never read Calvin on natural law, nor does your rhetoric give any indication of having read any of the other major classic Reformed authors on natural law. The notion that the decalogue is substantially identical to the natural law was universally taught by the magisterial Reformers in the 16th century. That notion was carried on by the Reformed orthodox in the late 16th century. You might be shocked to see how often Caspar Olevianus appealed to natural law in his Romans commentary. It was carried on by the 17th-century Reformed theologians.

    I have no idea what you mean by a “Klnean” two-kingdoms view. I don’t know that I’ve ever read MGK on two-kingdoms. The only thing I remember is a short piece in the old Presbyterian Guardian arguing for what the Southern Presbyterians called the “spirituality of the church,” but that had nothing to do with education.

    Your rhetoric here and elsewhere reveals a profound ignorance about the two-kingdoms as advocated by the tradition and by VanDrunen, Horton, and others. Indeed, it was Bob Godfrey, whom you hail as a hero here (and rightly so!) who introduced most of us to the very existence of the two kingdom ethic.

    This nonsense about a “Lutheran” two-kingdoms doctrine is just that: nonsense. VanDrunen, Horton, Hart, and Clark are merely arguing for the same thing Calvin articulated in the Institutes (1559) in 3.19.1:

    Therefore, in order that none of us may stumble on that stone, let us first consider that there is a twofold government in man (duplex esse in homine regimen): one aspect is spiritual, whereby the conscience is instructed in piety and in reverencing God; the second is political, whereby man is educated for the duties of humanity and citizenship that must be maintained among men. These are usually called the “spiritual” and the “temporal” jurisdiction (not improper terms) by which is meant that the former sort of government pertains to the life of the soul, while the latter has to do with the concerns of the present life—not only with food and clothing but with laying down laws whereby a man may live his life among other men holily, honorably, and temperately. For the former resides in the inner mind, while the latter regulates only outward behavior. The one we may call the spiritual kingdom, the other, the political kingdom. Now these two, as we have divided them, must always be examined separately; and while one is being considered, we must call away and turn aside the mind from thinking about the other. There are in man, so to speak, two worlds, over which different kings and different laws have authority.

    Was Calvin a “Lutheran” on the two kingdoms? Your post here, as your unfortunate CR piece, shows a very poor grasp of the basic outlines of Calvin’s thought. Perhaps if you actually read Calvin in context before you grabbed quotations for polemical use, your piece might have been more convincing. As it is, anyone who actually knows Calvin’s work will not be convinced.

    We also continue to agree with Machen, the founder of Westminster Seminary, on the importance of Christian schooling. You might consult this brief intro by Shane Lems, a WSC grad and URC minister.

    You write of a “common realm shorn of special revelation.” You’re suggesting that, in order to be Reformed, one has virtually to hold the Barthian/theonomic denial of natural revelation? Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Why? Because I’m not a Barthian nor am I a theonomist.

    Do you believe in the doctrine of common grace as promulgated by Synod Kalamazoo in 1924? Do you reject Kuyper’s or Van Til’s doctrine of common grace?

    I know it’s foolish to try to have a reasoned discussion with such a blind partisan but I shall continue. The “but” that you find so offensive is an attempt to deal with a) the pastoral realities outside of NW Indiana, the Dutch enclaves in Chicago, and in Grand Rapids. In many parts of this country it is beyond the capacity of families to establish Christian schools — at least in the foreseeable future. It is a goal, to be sure. In the meantime we have to negotiate reality as it is. Are we to discipline families for coming to a different judgment than I would about where they should send their children?

    Second, you did not answer my questions. Despite your suggestion to the contrary, I quite agree with what my colleagues wrote in the EVANGELIUM. Education is not NEUTRAL. Your continue to confuse “neutrality” with “commonality.” They are not the same thing.

    Your quotations of my colleagues, with whom I talk daily whom you do not know, to try falsely to create the appearance of disagreement is unworthy of Christian dialogue. More than that, it’s just silly and your implication is untrue. As it happens we’ve discussed these issues and we don’t disagree about the apparent lack of evidence from the NT of the establishment of the sort of schools you seem to want to make a 4th mark of the church.

    As anyone with eyes can see, I’ve argued the very same things repeatedly on the HB. Here is but one example which you seem to have ignored rather conveniently:

    http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/common-is-not-neutral/

    Once more, please show me the unequivocal evidence from the NT that the church set about setting up CSI type schools.

    By suggesting, as I am, that this evidence is not forthcoming, I am not suggesting that Christian parents ought not to endeavor to do all they can to see to it that their children receive a Christian education but I am seeking to put a speed bump in your over-heated, theonomic, Barthian rhetoric. If there is no prima facie evidence that the NT church did what you demand that all do, right now, then it should give us pause when we make demands of our brothers and sisters about what is required of them.

    I don’t disagree with my colleagues at all. I do disagree, however, with your attempt to re-contextualize their words into your argument. They are not arguing the same thing as you at all! None of them want to make Christian education a 4th mark of the church. None of them would discipline families for coming to a different conclusion than they have or for being immature in the faith. I don’t believe that they would disagree with my use of the category of “wisdom” rather than the category of “sin” by which to analyze this problem.

    Again, when you say “even when their are alternatives” you add a qualifier that changes the equation. The relevant clause in our Church Order is about instruction and advocacy, not about outcomes. As I said before, we are Calvinists. The outcome of teaching and preaching belongs to the Holy Spirit.

    You say,

    The URC CO doesn’t countenance elders promoting the possibility that children should be educated in schools that are hostile to the Christian faith.

    You raise conflate two issues: 1) what elders promote; 2) what members might do.

    No one in this discussion, least of all Clark, is “promoting” the sending of Christian children to secularist schools. The offering of qualifications to your overheated rhetoric does not reasonably constitute “promoting.” A reasonable definition of promoting would be to “advocate” or “to encourage” or to suggest that it would be a good thing.

    All I’ve done is to admit that there are cases (once more there is a world outside of rural NW Indiana, GR, and the Chicago suburbs where there is not a CSI school) where it is simply impossible presently to build a CSI-type school and where homeschooling isn’t realistic.

    Mark, what would you counsel folk to do in such a case?

    You appeal to the confessions. They were written in the 16th and 17th centuries, well before the Enlightenment and well before the current crisis. There were no such things as “public schools” as we know them today. The only place the confessions speak to schooling explicitly is in HC 103 and that refers to training of pastors. So now we’re down to your deductions with which you want to bind the consciences of other Christians, regardless of circumstance.

    My colleagues did not claim that Christian schooling is a confessional obligation in the way that you do.

    “Puerile”? “Ad hominem?” Not at all. In the pre-07 discussion (and well before Synod 07) you argued repeatedly that the FV was no significant threat to the URCs.

    On 20 June, 2007 you wrote (and this is just a single post, there were others like it):

    This generally comports with my observation that FV is really more an issue within the Presbyterian family.

    …Secondly, that this is a “live issue” of errant teaching in the URC. I am not aware of any minister or elder in the URC that self-identifies as FV….

    On your reasoning, apparently, so long as one did not label himself “Federal Visionist,” he was safe within the confines of the URC.

    These comments were in the broader context of of discussing not only whether the FV was actually a “live issue” in the URCs, a view which you alternately denied or downplayed, but also in the context of your repeated, if qualified, suggestion that the critics of the FV were being too hard on them (here I refer to your “acidic” comment after Synod). Were the Nine Points “acidic.” Why isn’t the FV “corrosive” of the gospel?

    Yes, I recognize that you did say explicitly that you hoped the Synod would reject the FV, but you also seemed to defend them. Talk about undermining your otherwise good arguments! Who is the latitudinarian here and on which issue.

    Is Christian schooling of the standing or falling of the churches? J H Alsted said that the doctrine of justification is of the standing or falling of the churches but you seem to treat other issues that way but not justification. My point, which you missed, is that where Scripture and our confessions are crystal clear, i.e., on covenant theology and justification, you took a much more latitudinarian stance but when it comes to Christian schools you are a precisionist. This is odd. Your priorities seem confused.

    Fortunately, Synod did not take your view of things and adopted not only Three Points on Sola Fide (again!) but also Nine Points to reject the whole mess comprehensively and erected a synodical study committee which has now finished its work and come to the same conclusions as adopted in the Nine Points.

    As to whether the doctrine of natural revelation and natural law is “radical” as you allege, your refusal to distinguish between, e.g. the Grotian doctrine of natural law–which sprung from his Socinian theology, and which was part of a natural theology project–and the orthodox and even confessional doctrine of natural law and natural revelation continues to amaze me. Once more:

    3. Some considerations from the confessions. The WCF opens thus:

    Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation.

    Note that the divines did not say that the light of nature is “not sufficient” for civil government but for salvation. For the divines, as for Calvin, civil government is one thing, salvation is another. Theonomists confuse these two things far too often.

    1.6: “there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature….” Notice that the divines taught that there are some circumstances “common to human actions and societies” that are ordered by the “light of nature.” The divines did not share the theonomic/Barthian skepticism about natural revelation and natural law. If I remember my history, the divines did not write during the Enlightenment. I think they were Christians and Reformed at that.

    It’s worth noting how often the divines speak about “the nature” of this or that, including the human nature of Christ (ch. 8). Yes, special revelation teaches us a great deal about the human nature of Christ but not everything. Scripture assumes, as do the divines, that, if our sense perception is working correctly, we perceive with them truth about human nature. Scripture doesn’t teach us what an arm or a leg or skin is or even how to eat. Indeed, Scripture doesn’t teach us a great many things about daily life or natural human existence. It doesn’t intend to teach us those things. It intends to teach us about sin and salvation. How do we know what sort of humanity Jesus had, that he is really consubstantial with us? We know it because we know from experience what humanity is and we know from Scripture that he was like us in every respect, sin excepted. If we become skeptical about “nature” as a genuine source of knowledge we risk our Christology.
    The same sort of argument applies to the doctrine of the sacraments (29:5). The divines assume that we know what bread and wine are and what their nature is. Scripture does not teach us what is the “substance and nature” of bread and wine, only that they remain substantially bread and wine. We need Scripture to teach us what the sacraments are but nature teaches us what bread and wine are.

    The Canons of Dort (RE 1.4) make a similar distinction between what “the light of nature” can and cannot do. The light of nature is insufficient for salvation, but it is sufficient for the ordering of common civil life. This teaching is explicit in CD 3/4/.4:

    There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, and natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and shows some regard for virtue and for good outward behavior. But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. By no means, further, this light, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted and hinders in unrighteousness, which by doing he becomes inexcusable before God.

    [When the Canons say “aright” here they refer to human inability to properly glorify God even in “things natural and civil.” First, Synod recognizes that there is a category of thing “natural and civil.” This is a category that does not exist for the theonomic/theocratic critics of natural law. What cannot be done with things “natural and civil” is to come to a saving knowledge of God. Thus, even in things natural and civil we do not become good before God but remain “wholly polluted.” This language, however, cannot be construed as a rejection of “things natural and civil” nor is it a rejection of commonality. This would require us to take this language out of the context in which was written.]

    WCF 10.4: “…be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature….” The Confession assumes that it is possible for human beings to order their lives according to the “light of nature.” A life thus lived is lived according to natural law. This law keeping is insufficient for salvation, but civil life is about law it is not about salvation.

    WCF 20.4: …for their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature….” On Christian liberty, the divines connect “the powers” ordained by God to maintain order (which was a problem during the English civil war!) with this troublesome expression, “the light of nature.” This language and way of thinking about civil life was well and deeply ingrained in Reformed orthodoxy in the 16th and 17th century.

    In this article the Confession even contrasts this source of knowledge with the “ceremonial” laws that had expired because they had been fulfilled. 21.1:

    The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might.

    The contrast here is between common life and stated worship. The former is lived according to “the light of nature.” Instead of applying the RPW to “all of life” (and thus to none of it really) the divines distinguish between daily life and stated worship. The RPW applies to the latter. It is derived from special not general revelation. Do not miss the fact, however, that once again the divines appeal to natural revelation. They always assume that, for civil life and order, it can be known. They even go so far as to teach that “the law of nature” teaches “that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship….”

    Unlike our theonomists, the divines believed that there is a natural law, that it can be and is known, that it contains specific precepts that are revealed with sufficiently clarity to be applied, even by the unregenerate, to specific instances. The skepticism that our theonomists have demonstrated toward the perspicuity of natural law is not only downright late modern (who can know anything really?) but contra confessional.

    Mark, you simply assume that the churches in the GKN/CRC went bad in isolation from the Christian schools, but does history actually support your assumption? The schools and churches were and continue to be much more closely intertwined.

    Again, this is not an argument against Christian schools, far from it but it is a caution against the sorts of arguments you’ve been making. The truth is that many Christian schools, even in Reformed circles, are deeply infected with the very sort of broad evangelicalism from which many of us fled. One wonders whether, in the bosom of the isolated Dutch enclave of NW Indiana, it is possible for you to see to what degree many of the CSI schools have become not part of the solution (i.e. recovering the Reformed confession) but part of the problem by leading children away from our confession and down the path that ended up wrecking the CRC.

    This is an argument for the Reformation not only of the churches but also of the schools.

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49. Zrim, sorry to have to reply here, the comments were closed at the end of your last post to me.

    First, the examples of anti-faith goings-on in government schools are not “extraordinary.” Just because you’ve not seen them personally, doesn’t mean much at all. I can assure you that the opposition to Christianity extends right down to the inability to sing traditional Christmas carols and passing out innocuous Veggie Tales Christmas cards. But, that stuff is just window dressing. It’s not the heart of the issue. The heart of the issue is that the “secular” structure of government schools denies that all wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. It can be denied outrightly or implicitly. If the root is sick, so will be the whole tree and the fruit.

    As to your door posts and whatnot: are you responsible for the teaching (both curriculum and catechesis) that enters your home? Deut 6 says that you are. Just because you send your children out of the home is inconsequential. Your gates extend to where you and your family are.

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50. Mike K., the lack of ability to reply strikes again! I’ll take your post in reverse order:

    You said: “If Christian heliocentricism is just the heliocentric model coupled with a reading of Psalm 8, then I think the rhetoric over distinctively Christian education is overblown at best.” That’s not at all what I wrote, Mike; that wasn’t my rhetoric. My wife didn’t just draw out the solar system, read Psalm 8 and call it Christian. You minimized what I wrote to bolster your effect, but your caricature is neither helpful nor fair. And even what I wrote was a minimization of what actually occurs. Education is more than facts and curricula – it’s a teacher sowing into students; it’s an atmosphere; it’s a sharing of lives. All this can be very easily overlooked, but oughtn’t be.

    As to whether I’d have my kids take lessons from Russell, that depends on numerous factors: the age/development of the child, the child’s level of discernment, the nature of the course, the setting of the instruction, and plenty of other issues to boot. Frankly, I’d rather have less discerning Christian students take a class from Russell than, say, from a papist. Russell’s errors are simply easier to spot and take less discernment that that of a Jesuit.

    -Tim

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51. Mike, I see I didn’t address the issue of excellence. You don’t even have to be a theonomist to believe that Christians should pursue excellence in their endeavors. Take work, for example. We’re to be the excellent slaves, so long as we are slaves. Other folks may just work to please the boss when he’s around, but our Boss is in heaven and sees all. That, all by itself, should set us a part in our jobs – it gives us a higher and more pressing motivation. The same effect occurs in our marriages, child rearing, and other areas of life. Being a Christian is a reason to be excellent in any given field.

    As to repentance for our dullness, that’s clearly not always applicable. However, it’s applicable in my life *far more* than I’d like to admit. Probably you, too… maybe even DGH.

    -Tim

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52. Tim,
    First, if experience counts for nothing then what are we doing here? Sorry, but I happen to think what we see on the ground makes for quite a difference. It seems to me that those who want to stay in the ethereal echelons of theory do so because it serves the project of casting aspersions better. But it’s along ways from worldview theory to classroom practice. Never mind that the typical public school teacher and admin is just trying to get over the 3 Rs instead make little devils. I know, it’s fun to think everything is a spiritual battle, but I pit my kids against the pagans only once week.

    Second, if one measure’s things by the singing of Christmas carols and Veggie Tales, all I can say is ick. I’ll leave the “Merry Christmas!/Happy Holidays!” fubar to the cultural warriors of whatever stripe.

    Third (or the heart of the matter), I don’t have any problem with denying where wisdom and knowledge come from in the common realm. My problem is denying wisdom and knowledge. All I ask of the pagan cashier is that she gives me correct change, not if she can tell me where her knowledge and ability come from. It would be nice if she didn’t harangue me about where I go to church. And by and large, my cashiers don’t do that. In the same way, as long as my child’s teachers are imparting knowledge and wisdom well enough, I don’t see what the problem is. I’d like them to not harangue my kids about who they think made the world. Thankfully, I’ve never had that problem. And if I do, I have a magistrate to whom can appeal to tell them to lay off or else. I also have plenty of Christian schools I can enroll them in if need be. Funny how my radical 2K view doesn’t disclude any transformer options while yours demands strict adherences.

    As to your door posts and whatnot: are you responsible for the teaching (both curriculum and catechesis) that enters your home? Deut 6 says that you are. Just because you send your children out of the home is inconsequential. Your gates extend to where you and your family are.

    Yes, of course I understand myself as responsible. What I don’t understand is the implication that my decision is irresponsible simply because it doesn’t match up with yours.

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53. Zrim, I didn’t say experience counts for nothing. Your exp is just that, as is mine. I’ve seen people kicked out of education departments for handing out “Holiday Cards” with a Scripture reference on the bottom back. That was at Western Washington University. I could lay on a host of experiences, which might be instructive. My point was that the anti-Christian folks get down to the nitty-gritty of stupid cards and greetings. If not a veggie-tales card, how much less the gospel? How much less all of Christian truth? The root is rotten. It was from the beginning. We’ve seen a great deal of corruption of our government schools. Maybe things are honky dory on your side of the world, but they’re not here. Neither are they as bad as they will be be.

    You move from a cashier breaking a $10 to your child’s education with such ease, as if there’s not a world of difference! If that’s what you think of education, you can have it, brother. I’m just glad you weren’t responsible for my education.

    Just to recap my thinking, I’ve tried to show: 1) Yahweh requires the education of his children rigorously to be wrapped around his revelation and commandments. 2) Both curriculum and catechesis are involved in that education. 3) Government schools do not, by design, do this. Therefore, 4) government schools are not a legitimate Christian choice. I’ve happily admitted that this is mitigated by varying situations and the development of the child. Maybe we have somewhere to go, yet, and maybe not.

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54. The tone of this discussion is vitriolic, caustic, and sophomoric, unbecoming brothers in Christ. It should cease and desist. This exchange should, I suggest, be taken down for the good of the church and to avoid embarassing the participants. It provides fresh evidence why Reformed blogs too often descend to the level of Lord of the Flies. Enough.

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55. Tim,

    The cashier point wasn’t to compare making change to educating children. The latter is indeed a higher temporal good than the latter, but that’s actually the point: education is a temporal task, not an eternal one. They are both creational tasks, and if we don’t ask one to be eternally justified then why ask the other just because its temporal value is higher? But it seems you think education rises to eternal value. This is what I mean by theonomists mirroring the modernist in his over-realizing of education (and politics), where these things are expected to do more than that for which they were created. For the modernist, education is a device (along with politics) that ushers in progress and social utopia, for the theonomist it is co-equal with parenting and makes human beings and nurtures piety.

    Re your re-cap, yes, I understand. You want education to be a fourth mark, so to speak. Where we go from here is for you to capitalize on the existing soft legalism, convert it into a hard legalism and just come out and say that my public schooling warrants my discipline. In some sense, I’d prefer that to the current soft legalism that chastises with that wet-noodle category of “wisdom.” In my old Fundamentalist circles this was how the soft legalism of substance use was conveyed: we’re not explicitly telling you what you may or mayn’t do, but we’ll brow-beat you into second class citizenship by saying wise believers abstain from the thing in question while dimmer, less pious ones participate. This outlook wants all the power of “discouragement” without any responsibility.

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56. Zrim, I’m very interested in your temporal/eternal distinction. I think I get the root of if, but it appears (like with so much R2K thought) that simple categories get abused into a different shape and function than would be warranted by the categories themselves.

    Would anything fall into eternal besides the following: public worship, ministries of word and sacrament, prayer, catechism, family worship, private worship? In your mind, where’s the point of division between the two?

    What relation does, say, cashiering have to the eternal? Of itself, I’d think very little.
    What relation does, say, covenantal education have to the eternal? A lot more than a little. First, the ministry of word and sacrament is part teaching? In fact, that ministry gives us the basis to understand the rest of the world as we come into contact with it. It lets us put cashiering (a temporal exercise) into a context quite different from the pagan cashier (Eph 6:5-8). It helps us eat and drink (both quite temporal) to God’s glory (1 Cor 10:31 – cultic meals are extended to “whatever you do’), while unbelievers do not. But, wait, both Christians and non are eating and drinking, right? Is there “Christian” eating and drinking? Yes. Both unbeliever and Christian put food and drink into mouth and eventually swallow, but the Christian does it to a different end (glory of God) and with thankfulness to God. See, the eternal keeps getting down into temporal things. (That’s part of the incarnation.) We’re not allowed simply to abandon temporal issues and act as if they have no eternal significance. If this applies with cashiering, eating, and drinking, how much more with education? After all, doesn’t Yahweh say: “the fear of Yahweh is the beginning (head) of knowledge and wisdom”? Doesn’t education deal with things like knowledge and wisdom? Education, though common to all people (Christian or not), still has eternal aspects to it. Thus, you’ve set up a false dilemma with your eternal/temporal assessment of it.

    As to the rest, 4th mark and all… that’s mere caricature, tomfoolery; not worth responding to.

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57. Tim,

    I think at bottom of the failure to understand what 2K is saying is actually a low view of creation, such that creation has to be rescued and redeemed in order to have the sort of intrinsic worth it already has; the mistake seems to have something to do with not distinguishing between the essence of creation (very good) with its condition (very sinful). It’s not a matter of “abandoning temporal issues and act as if they have no eternal significance,” but rather putting very good temporal issues into eternal perspective.

    The dividing point is between this age and the next age. This means that everything from the lowest temporal good (cashiering) to the highest (life itself) stands against the age to come. Even faith itself, which is good, will give way to sight; the church militant, which is good, will give way to the church triumphant. The temporal order has an order from trivial to enduring, but it’s all passing away. Marriage is an esteemed temporal good, but it will be dissolved in the next age. Life is very good, but we have to die before we live. Family is very good, but we must hate our daughters and dads if they get between us and the next age. If it’s true that creational enterprise like education “has eternal aspects to it” that must mean we’ll have schools in the age to come. But if we won’t even have spouses or the temporal lives we have now, what makes anyone think we’ll have Calvin College?

    So I know what Christians eating is, but I don’t know what Christian eating is; I know what Christians doing politics and education is, but I don’t know what Christian politics or education is. Now, if we mean communion, church polity and preaching/catechism, I suppose we can, in a manner of speaking, say there are such things as Christian eating, politics and education. But I don’t think that’s what you mean. I think you mean there are redemptive versions of creational enterprise and stuff. But if that’s true then there really must be a thing as a Christian salad, a Christian voting booth and a Christian chalkboard.

    Sorry you think my “fourth mark” point was such grand and negligible folly. I was being quite serious.

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58. Ok, Sully, so one of the flying chocoate cream pies smacked you up side your head. Well duck next time.

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59. GLWJohnson: I have no dog in this hunt. But your strident reply is emblematic of the problem. Apparently you don’t see that the kind of pie throwing that amuses you dishonors Christ. One would have expected that those with letters after their name and ordination credentials would attain a level of maturity beyond that of high school or frat boys. Playing with words, the clever retort, the amusing put-down that marks the Reformed blogosphere is apparently a Reformed version of pie throwing. But it hardly exemplifies the “love for the brethren” that should mark even Reformed Christians, even seminary professors and clergy. For amusement, the players would do better to invest in a Game Boy than to play on a blog. They reveal a serious spiritual deficit and set a poor example for the young seminarians who are training to be pastors. If they cannot reform themselves, it becomes necessary for consistories and boards of trustees to step in.

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60. To quote Steve Martin, “Well eeeexxxcccccuuuussssse me!”

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61. Sillivan, you might have had a point, though why you’re reading blogs looking for uplift and edification is a mystery — you don’t seem to understand the genre. But you comment comes after important substantive responses from Scott Clark to someone who has shown no capacity to even try to understand the 2k position. You’re timing is lousy.

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62. Zrim, thanks. Your last post was very helpful. So, the dividing line is between temporal and eternal. Exactly what things bridge the gap, just people? What relation does, say, ministry have to the people that move from temporal to eternal? These are honest questions. I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from on this.

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63. So, the dividing line is between temporal and eternal. Exactly what things bridge the gap, just people? What relation does, say, ministry have to the people that move from temporal to eternal?

    Well, the imago Dei is the aspect of creation that is the primary target of redemption. (The secondary target is all of inanimate creation that groans for the sons of God to be revealed, as it were, because as goes the imago Dei so goes the rest of creation.) I suppose, to use your language, it would be correct to say that “people bridge the gap.” But I am not so sure of the implication that this is somehow mere. After all, Jesus came, lived, died, rose, descended, ascended and will return for…his people. His primary target doesn’t seem to be either secondary creation (trees and fish) or the projects of his primary target (education, government, art, science).

    Ministry administers a semi-realized eternity to those who live in the temporal while they wait for eternity to be fully-consummated. This is what two kingdoms means it speaks of believers having a dual citizenship. Heaven on earth comes to pilgrims in Word and sacrament, not by way of warriors taking over creation.

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