Okay, that’s a little over the top, but it may be a fitting response to those who use scare tactics to oppose two-kingdom theology. Our favorite theonomist in the CRC, Rabbi Bret, has posted at his blog a piece that apparently appeared in Christian Renewal, that un-American (okay, it’s Canadian) publication which touts worldviewism from its corner of Dutch-Canadian culture. (The author is an elder in the URC and a supporter of Mid-America Reformed Seminary. I thought the URC and MARS were opposed to developments in the CRC but apparently Christian schooling makes the ordination of women look trivial.)
The article in question is a review of Westminster California’s recent issue of Evangelium where the faculty write about the importance of Christian education. Now we are all for a return to the polemics of nineteenth-century America when Charles Hodge would engage in lengthy debates with the likes of Edwards Amasa Park by simply responding to articles published in another theological quarterly. 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. He begins by quoting someone who doesn’t even write for Evangelium – that would be me, whom he identifies as a WSC professor. Since the author is a lawyer, you might expect him to pay respect to technicalities, which would mean identifying me at least as an adjunct professor, not a professor. But higher purposes will not get in the way of righteousness, justice, and a Christian school.
To add insult to WSC’s injury, he even quotes a comment I wrote about teaching American history to a string of interactions about worldview at this blog. What this has to do with the issue of Evangelium under review is again one of those technicalities that one would expect a practicing attorney to understand. A quotation from a random comment on a blog would likely not hold up in a court of law, or even an ecclesiastical court. But for the cause of Christian education, all evidence is legitimate, all two-kingdom comments are in contempt.
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. Here are a few illustrative quotations:
So Daniel’s mastery of pagan education while maintaining his godly faith serves as an example for the education of our covenant youth. Translation for our time: as long as your child maintains his spiritual faith, education in a non-Christian school may be a legitimate venue of choice.
Let’s pause here to note that foundational principles of Christian education do not vanish due to someone’s bad experience at a non-Reformed Christian school, or one’s favorable memory of “witnessing†to unbelievers at a public school. Rather, the issue is our principled commitment to a full-orbed, Reformed-shaped, Christian education.
Read again the representative NL2k quotations cited in the introduction to this review and ask whether these be can reconciled to our Reformed worldview. If you find they cannot, then until such errors are rejected, general affirmations coupled with contextualized qualifiers will not stem the concern over the effect NL2k could have in the Reformed churches and in our Christian schools.
Each of these quotes highlights the way that the author only thinks of Christian schools when considering a Christian education. For him, the antithesis is writ large in the subjects children study and that antithesis is manifest formally in the antagonism between Christian schools and state schools.
Pardon my interruption, but did the rapture occur and leave this author behind in the year 1960? Has he never heard of home schools where the Christian teacher is the parent? 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?
One line is indicative of this slight to Christian parents: “Christian parents can be like a customer deciding between a Cadillac and a Ford. One choice may be better and cost more, but either one will get you to your destination. Such a consumerist ‘common realm’ approach to education certainly strikes a discordant note from our historic Reformed ethic.â€
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. Home schooling, in fact, is the purest form of parental responsibility for 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.
And here I worried about the Obama administration destroying the family. Little did I know I had to worry about the Christian school board.
Old Life 