Why Christian Education?

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An inescapable concept is not whether but which. “Not whether the word of God must rule, but rather which word of which god will rule.” Education inescapably trains students to be servants of whatever god is taught. Therefore, at Coram Deo Academy, we recognize: 1) Schools train us for either freedom or slavery 2) There is no such thing as neutrality in education, and 3) It’s either Christ or chaos.

1. Schools train us for either freedom or slavery

From the Latin educere, to educate means to bring out or lead forth. The word is picturesque of Moses bringing Israel out of their slavery in Egypt, or of Joshua leading the Israelites forth into the promised land.  Christian education produces true freedom (John 8:31-32). This is why, in Deuteronomy 6, the newly freed Israelites were commanded to give their children an education in the way of the Lord (what scripture refers to as discipleship). This is also why the serpent’s strategy has always been to deceive and take over the education of the youth. What was the first thing Nebuchadnezzar did when he took Judah captive? He took their most promising children and put them through a Babylonian re-education program including: Babylonian literature, language and philosophy (Daniel 1:4); a Babylonian diet contrary to God’s commands (Daniel 1:5); and new Babylonian names in order to erase their Jewish identity (Daniel 1:7). All of these measures were aimed at making these Jewish captives thoroughly Babylonian. By taking authority over their education, Nebuchadnezzar was seeking to make them disciples and slaves of his gods. 

2. There is no such thing as neutrality in education

One of the greatest myths of “secular” societies is that education is a neutral task–that all subjects: math, grammar, history, etc. can be taught without reference to religion. Education is “neutral” they say. Neutral (neuter) means “neither one nor the other.” As Dr. Joseph Boot points out “A neutered man is called a eunuch because in the full sense of the term he is no longer male, yet not female. The term has since come to mean an unbiased position, or an unwillingness to take sides.” To have an unbiased position in education is both impossible and unbiblical for the following reasons.  

1. Jesus rejects it. He said in Matthew 12:30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” 
2. Scripture commands us to provide an education that is thoroughly God-centered (Deuteronomy 6:4-7).  
3. The Great Commission is a mandate to educate all the nations and make them students of King Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20).  
4. To teach subjects in a purely ‘neutral’ manner is idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:31). If we teach math facts with no reference to God, He is being robbed of His due worship and it is being given to something else.  
5. Our opponents do not teach the subjects in a ‘neutral’ manner. Communists interpret the sin and suffering in history through the lens of Marxism. Darwinians interpret our origins in science through the lens of naturalism. Whenever the “secular” state takes over education, it is not to make it ‘neutral.’ It is aimed at disestablishing Christianity and setting up a new religious order.  

In 1890, the great Princetonian A.A. Hodge prophesied what would become of our nation if Christians bought into the lie of a ‘neutral’ education: “I am as sure as I am of the fact of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social, nihilistic ethics, individual, social, and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.” 

3. Christ or chaos

Colossians 1:17 says that “he [Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Not only does Christ hold together atoms and galaxies, He is the cement of every human institution. Whether it be the family, the Church, or the state, no human institution can endure without Christ. Christ is the sun by which every planet is regulated in its proper orbit. He is the nucleus of the cell, the foundation of the house, the heart of the body. Remove Christ and the atom becomes radioactive, the house falls, the body returns to dust. Remove Christ and you are left with tyranny and slavery. Likewise any school that separates Christ from their curriculum will always end up self-destructive by teaching statism, abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, racism, and every evil under the sun. One only has to look at Princeton, Harvard, Yale–all of which started out as fortresses of Christianity. Once Christ was removed from the center, they all became institutions of death. Those are the only two choices in education: Christ as center or chaos.