The current issue of Ordained Servant has an exchange between David Noe and Benjamin Miller about Christian education. Miller is critical of Noe’s original piece in the April issue in which he raised questions about what actually constitutes a Christian education. Noe’s response is here.
What is worth recalling is a small remark that Noe made in his original piece. In his concluding paragraph he wrote: “the most we can say about “Christian education” is that it is education delivered or provided by Christians. This, of course, is not an unimportant claim.” In fact, it is a very important feature of Christian schools that they are populated by believers.
The reason is that in a Christian school it is possible and even encouraged for students and faculty to reflect on what a believer might think about Andrew Jackson’s policies on native Americans or Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s feminism. That kind of consensus is hard to come by in many colleges and schools and it creates an environment where students are freer (conceivably) to ask questions than they would be an a private secular or state institution. Such a consensus also works in not overtly Christian settings like Hillsdale College where faculty may presume that most students consider themselves politically conservative or culturally traditional. It is much easier to teach when you can take some ideas for granted rather than having to start from scratch or assume that any kind of normative assertion is contested. At the same time, the answers come to Hillsdale students from a variety of directions — libertarianism, Straussianism, paleo-conservatism, neo-conservatism — such that a shared conviction will not necessarily yield intellectual agreement. That kind of diversity actually encourages students to think and faculty not to become complacent. Even so, a Christian school or college has real value if it creates a setting where students are free to ask questions about important convictions.
The problem — there is always a black cloud in the blue sky at Old Life — is that faculty and teachers at Christian institutions often have merely a Sunday school understanding of the faith which is supposed to integrate their academic expertise. In which case, students may often hear moral arguments that come across as the Christian position on banking policy or aesthetics when in fact the idea is mainly the opinion of the professor with a patina of religious conviction. Such a college has as many potential problems as Godless State University if students are not sharp enough to discern when their professors are merely teaching and when they are exhorting. Most undergrads, in fact, do not have that kind of intellectual discretion. But a pious older adolescent does have enough sense to be concerned that what he is hearing from his professor may not always conform to Christian convictions.
Be that as it may, Christians schools at their best play a useful role in the education of Christian children and all the controversy around Noe’s article should not let this point be missed.
Old Life 
As a teacher of American History at a (broadly-evangelicalish) Christian school and confessional Presbyterian, this all rings awfully true.
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“to reflect on what a believer might think about Andrew Jackson’s policies on native Americans or Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s feminism.”
Whoa, wait a minute here. Shouldn’t a believer and an unbeliever have the exact same thoughts about these issues since A) The Bible says nothing about how the civil government should run and B) the fall has zero effect on the minds of unbelievers (as DGH recently informed me)?
Yet another contradiction with the r2k doctrine?
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Jon, what do you mean? 2k’s point is that believers can have different takes on matters indifferent, but it’s the opposite for what the Bible clearly teaches. Curriculum is adiaphora, catechism binding.
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Darryl G. Hart: “The problem — there is always a black cloud in the blue sky at Old Life — is that faculty and teachers at Christian institutions often have merely a Sunday school understanding of the faith which is supposed to integrate their academic expertise.”
Since you mentioned Hillsdale College, did you find this to be the case at Hillsdale College even though Hillsdale is not an overtly Christian setting?
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Zrim,
“Andrew Jackson’s policies” are in the “civil government kingdom.” Therefore, the Christian worldview (if there were such a thing, but we all know there’s NOT) would have absolutely no bearing on it. An unbeliever relying purely on natural, unguided reason should come to IDENTICAL conclusions (at least in theory) as the believer because A) The Bible doesn’t speak to the issue and B) natural law is the same for everybody.
So why would it matter if you were teaching Andrews Jackson’s policies to a group of believers or a mixed bag of both believers and unbelievers? It should make zero difference on the r2ker’s world-, er, belief system.
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Jon, your theory seems pretty wooden. Even believers read the Bible and come to different conclusions (i.e. the Protestant Reformation), so how unbelievers and believers should come to identical conclusions on Jackson and Stanton is baffling. Both special and natural revelation are the same for everybody, but how that means we should expect everyone to conclude identically doesn’t follow.
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Zrim,
Perhaps the word “exact” is overkill. Darryl’s point is that Christian schools have the advantage of offering a like-minded group of people to teachers who won’t then have to reinvent the wheel. But why in the world would believers’ opinions of civil affairs be very different from unbelievers’? According to his r2k doctrine, they should not. So the article doesn’t make much sense if r2k is true.
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“The problem — there is always a black cloud in the blue sky at Old Life — is that faculty and teachers at Christian institutions often have merely a Sunday school understanding of the faith which is supposed to integrate their academic expertise.”
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I graduated from a conservative Christian college w-a-y back in 1997. And I found this exact thing to be true at my alma mater. In one history class, our professor started to talk about the Reformation. So my ears perked up (you know, because the 16th century is the only century that really matters). 😉 Anyhoo, the well-meaning professor started asking us students about different Reformers’ views on the gospel/justification. That’s where it got interesting (or depressing). He asked what Martin Luther’s view was, and someone said “Justification by faith.” (I thought, OK – could have added the word “alone” there, but whatever.) Then he asked what Calvin’s view was, and someone blurted out “salvation by election.” I waited for him to correct the kid, but nope – he was ready to just move right along, as if that were the correct answer. I quickly raised my hand and did my best to explain that Calvin also taught justification by faith alone, just like Martin Luther.
As an aside, in my 4 years in the biblical studies dept there,we were never assigned a single solitary page of reading from Calvin’s writings. (It was a dispensational school, but c’mon!)
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Jon, you have no idea what 2k is. Sorry. I’m not sure either if you inhabit the same world that I do, you know, the one where believers hardly agree on even important points of theology, or the one where believers listen to the advice of unbelievers about investment, gardening, foreign policy, and even fashion. I am not sure what straw 2k man you are swinging at. But I am sure that when you hit him he will crumble.
BTW, the point wasn’t that students and faculty at a Christian school would be like minded. Instead, it would be a setting where people could talk openly — without fear of embarrassment — about religious convictions and questions.
Delete the ontology and just read the words here. Grammar and definitions are hard enough without having to resolve whether being precedes essence.
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Jon, more wooden-o-sity. Have you been reading Noe? If so, you’ll notice that it’s possible to at once commend Christian schools and lodge serious questions to its advocates, not least those pertaining to worldview. At least from this 2ker’s point of view, commending Christian schools would be a lot easier if its advocates could admit that it has less to do with worldview than it does with wanting to have more local and immediate control over their children’s learning.
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TUAD, it does not violate 2k.
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Darryl, are only the small remarks worth recalling, viz. “What is worth recalling is a small remark that Noe made…”?
I expected at least some schooling from you on Machen’s educational biography.
It can’t be just about you. It has to be about me and us sometimes too.
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DGH,
I realize that you think I’m an idiot. You make sure to tell me every time I post. But the problem is that you never actually interact with any of my points. You haven’t been able to explain why unbelievers (who are great engineers and doctors) can believ in something ludicrous like the assertion that sodomy is natural and healthy.
You, nor Dr. Noe can explain why teaching children that they are cosmic accidents will have zero effect on their views of ethics.
There are a whole host of questions that I am looking for real dialogue on, but you are too busy sputtering ad hominens and sarcastic remarks to be of any help.
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Jon, you overinterpret practically everything I say, which means I never called you an idiot. Not understanding 2k doesn’t imply idiocy. It implies not knowing what 2k represents.
Where did Noe say that he wants students to think they are cosmic accidents? Really. You are not doing a good impersonation of having the serious dialogue you want.
If you want a discussion, try not painting 2k as synonymous with unbelief or a denial of regeneration.
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Jon, here’s a serious response to your suggestion that nobody has been able to explain why unbelievers (who are great engineers and doctors) can believe in something ludicrous like the assertion that sodomy is natural and healthy: abiding human sin. I’m sure you’ve heard of people who get things right over here also getting things wrong over there. But as long as you remain wooden about how human beings work, or how there is only one kind of wisdom and grace, this won’t make much sense.
And a serious question back at you is how you would explain believers who are great at some things redemptive get other things redemptive wrong? You’ve heard of credo-baptists and paedo-communionists. And what about believers who regularly and uncritically participate in corrupt worship? How can that be if regeneration does everything you seem to think it does? If it can’t ensure that even the regenerate themselves think and behave righteously, then how in thee heck can you impugn the common grace given to unbelievers simply because they don’t get everything right? My answer is that total depravity still abides even in those that are indwelt by the Spirit.
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One of the nice things about being confessional is that we set some boundaries for ourselves on what we affirm & deny. Once those boundaries are set, we can debate a lot of other things with an open mind and the humility to realize that I may not know it all. Learning is all about asking questions, considering answers, refining the question, developing general rules, examining exceptions to general rules, and on-and-on. In so doing we realize the journey is as fulfilling as the destination, all the while holding to the essentials of the faith and the God who gives us life and breath for the journey.
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First to DGH’s point real quick: I didn’t say Noe wants kids to think they’re cosmic accidents. What I said was that (if I understand his article correctly) there is no such thing as a truly Christian education. Therefore, there is essentially no difference in how a child who thinks he is merely modified spacedust views the value of human life, versus a child who believes in the imago dei. I believe that the one belief (origins) will carry over and affect how he views other things (value of life, ethics, etc.)
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Zrim,
Good dialogue. If you see what I replied to Dr. Hart earlier, I see wisdom as something that is POTENTIAL in the believer. Just like he has the POTENTIAL to avoid sin, even if he sometimes chooses to sin. But the unbeliever CAN NOT please God (Rom. 8:7-8).
So it is with wisdom. A believer has the resources (HS) to draw from to form wise views on issues, but he can certainly (sinfully) choose to think unBiblically on matters (such as abortion, sexuality, etc.). The unbeliever is uncapable of true wisdom. Sure, he can FORMALLY agree with correct conclusions, but he cannot found these in his worldview.
When you say abiding sin can cause an unbeliever to come to ludicrous conclusions, like the normalcy of perverse sexual relations, aren’t you admitting that sin is affecting his MIND? Isn’t there some noetic effects of sin going on here? And if he can believe something this crazy by suppressing the clear testimony of natural revelation, how can we trust him to come to correct conclusions about other matters? I know, this is where you and DGH jump in and say “But don’t you trust road engineers?” Of course I do, but I chalk that up to common grace.
The antithesis view with it’s theology of common grace seems to make the most sense of the Biblical evidence, in my opinion. It also seems to correlate best with reality. I mean really, any philosophy that says that education from an atheist view is no different from one from a Christian worldview simply doesn’t comport with the facts.
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Jon, it’s true that the unbeliever can never please God because faith alone is needed to please God. But it’s still possible for unbelievers to do common tasks better than believers, which means that believers still please God when they do shoddy to mediocre work. The neo-Cal work ethic about excellence falls down on this point, and not that there’s anything wrong with excellence, but most believers aren’t as excellent at their tasks as the mythology leads them to believe. So they should take more comfort in that which makes them acceptable to God instead of to men.
And, yes, I admit that sin affects every human faculty. But if you chalk up unbelievers being able to do well to common grace then what’s the beef here? But if you think education from an atheist view is so different from one from a Christian worldview then what would you say about Daniel and his friends? Evidently, it’s possible to get an excellent education from the heathen. Maybe it was different, but it was also very good. Who could have anything against a very good education? Daniel didn’t. Dare to be a Daniel, Jon.
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