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The Full Text — "Education: A Christian View"

by John W. Alexander

Editor's note: This essay was originally published by InterVarsity Press as a booklet in the late 1970s. We offer it here both as a still-useful framework for discussion about education and as a tribute to its author, the late John W. Alexander (1918-2002). "Dr. A" fostered fruitful engagement between Christians and their academic and professional milieux throughout his career as Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and as President of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship from 1964 to 1981, and we in Graduate & Faculty Ministries are especially grateful for his legacy.

The complete text of the original booklet appears here for those interested in the historical document. For an excerpted version presenting the core of Alexander's argument, please see our feature article, "Education: A Christian View [Excerpts]."

Education: A Christian View

What is happening in education in the United States today?

What is going on in grade schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges, technical schools and universities?

Different people give different answers. On the one hand are those who are pleased. They point with satisfaction to such developments as open classrooms, more freedom, less rigidity, more creativity, more funding by the federal government, the appearance of a federal bureau dealing with "Health, Education and Welfare," removal of religion from schools, and so on.

On the other hand are those who are distressed by the deterioration of basic reading, writing and mathematical skills, the deterioration of respect (both for others and for property), the increase in drugs, the decrease in safety, the increase in teen-age pregnancies, in muggings, in extortion, in rapes, in threats, in the emphasis on "rights without responsibilities," in the abdication of teaching ethics (what is right and what is wrong), and in government dictatorship which decides for most children what primary and secondary schools they shall and shall not attend.

Several exponents of this second group contend that the steady decline in academic standards proves that public school education in the United States is the most dishonest consumer product on the market today.

Some of the most discouraged people I know are Christians who have been teaching in public schools in various parts of the nation. They love students; they love their subject matter; they love to teach — and yearn to be allowed to do so. But in recent years there has been such increasing resistance from parents, resistance from students, interference from outside powers, compounded by decreasing respect, discipline and support from school administrators that the heart has been cut out of teaching for them. A Kansas teacher wrote me a personal letter saying, "Teachers have been severely undermined by society. They have been given by default the responsibility for much of a child's training that should be done at home and, at the same time, have had many tools of authority removed from use.... When most parents say they want better disciplined schools, what they really mean is that they want the schools to discipline other people's children. When their own child is disciplined, most parents see this as a threat to themselves; the success of their accomplishment as a parent is in question.... The courts also have contributed to the decline in standards...."

Hence the question: What is happening to education? How good is it? Are we getting our money's worth from it?

First, let's define education. There is a broad definition: helping a person develop his/her potentials. On this basis practically everybody is involved in education. Some of it is self-education; much is education-by-others. Some of us are professional educators. Many of us carry other kinds of educational responsibilities: parents educating children, grandparents educating grandchildren, employers educating employees, and so on. In each case one person is helping another realize his or her potential for improvement.

A tighter definition of education is that aggregate of institutions which offer courses and employ people whose primary vocation is teaching. On this basis we have primary schools, middle schools, high schools, nursing schools, technical institutes, colleges, universities and so on. Some of these institutions are "private"; most are "public" (which means their major sources of revenue are appropriations from tax-collecting government agencies). I will use education in this stricter sense.

I have written this booklet for college students concerned for the what, why, how of their own education, college students planning to major "in education," teachers who may be interested in yet another brief commentary on educational philosophy and methodology, parents evaluating schools enrolling their children, administrators and board members responsible for the life and accountability of individual schools, and taxpayers and donors interested in evaluating the returns on their investments. I speak primarily to the Christians in each of these groups, yet many ideas may interest others also.

Comments to follow are grouped around the following themes: purposes of education, mistakes of education, some basic propositions, selected suggestions, and a word about academic freedom.

Purposes of Education

What should an educator seek to achieve? What should a school try to accomplish? By what criteria should a college (or high school or grade school or any other educational institution) be evaluated? The answers to these questions depend on the purposes chosen. The first order of business for a school is to construct clear statements of its purposes. Purposes will unify faculties, give prospective students a picture of what they can expect, and provide taxpayers and donors with at least some idea of why they should designate funds for support.

Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). The overriding purpose of a Christian educator (and of a Christian school) is to help people gladly obey the Lord Jesus Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3). All truth is God's truth. We study his truth as revealed in Scripture. We study his truth as discernible through research and study in all the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. We enjoy his truths as available though the arts.

We research, study and interact not only to learn and to enjoy learning but also to obey — gladly responding in obedience to Christ through those actions which truth and his truths indicate. Within such a single overriding purpose may I suggest several purposes of a more specific nature — aspirations worth aiming to fulfill, criteria by which a school, teacher and pupil can be evaluated.

To help a person learn to think: to construct good questions, to formulate true answers, to observe carefully, to analyze, to remember, to recall useful information, to employ imagination creatively and constructively, to associate ideas. Secular education can help a person partially fulfill this purpose, but only a disciple of Christ enjoys the power of the Holy Spirit to stimulate his thinking.

To help a person understand himself as an individual. Good education will help him answer such questions as: Who am I? What am I like? How did I get that way? Why am I that way? What are the consequences of my having those attributes and doing those deeds? Where have I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Secular education can assist a person in partially answering those questions, but only Christian education based squarely on sound, biblical grounding can help him or her formulate well-rounded answers to basic questions of self-understanding — and the associated attribute of a healthy self-image.

To help a person understand the society of which he or she is a part. This applies to micro- and macro-social groupings as well as all in between. It involves relationships with parents, spouse, children, classmates, roommates, neighbors. It concerns neighborhoods, wards, cities, counties, states and nations. It includes the world itself — 4 billion fellow citizens. What is society like? How did it get that way? Why is it that way? What are the consequences of its being that way? Again, secular education provides several insights into this realm of knowledge. However, well-rounded Christian education provides better insights by indicating the importance of society-controlling forces which secular education denies.

To help a person understand the environment in which she or he as an individual and society as groups live. The environment is the sum total of nature apart from ourselves: atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, soil and landscape, sky and skyscape, animal and plant life, and water in all its forms. What are the characteristics of the environment? How did it get that way? Why? So what? How are all the parts interrelated? Once again secular education can shed light into vast realms of truths in natural science, but biblical Christian education provides fuller answers, indicating the purposes of creation, why it is flawed and how it will be changed.

To help a person enjoy that understanding. There ought to be a genuine delight in learning and increasing one's understanding (assuming of course that one is motivated by valid reasons for getting an education). A sobering observation about so much education today is that so few people seem to be deriving much genuine pleasure from intellectual experiences. Here again there are advantages to Christian education in which students (whether teacher or pupil) can share their joy with God himself, the one who thought of all those truths in the first place and who delights to receive praise from his children who, through learning, are able "to think God's thoughts after him."

To help a person make wise decisions. Unfortunately, it is possible to possess a vast data base, to understand complex relationships and to enjoy the experience — but be unable to make wise decisions based upon those resources. Education ought to help us. We face enormous problems today, as individuals and groups, from person-to-person relationships to group-to-group relationships, national and international. Education should help us answer, What problems do I (we) face? What are their causes? What remedial measure might solve them? How should we deal with those problems, their causes, their cures? What is the best way to organize society and help each person experience the best possible life? Without question, secular education provides help in such decision making. But scriptural Christian education provides better help for two reasons. First, it is motivated to obey God's will in executing human affairs, second, it has access to God's wisdom in knowing which decisions to make. "I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you..." (Ps. 32:8).

To help a person implement those wise decisions. It is not enough to know what I ought to do. I need help to do what I know should be done. Education should help me develop the skills and strength to carry out what wisdom decrees is the path to follow. While secular education has no place to turn for help other than human nature, Christian education introduces us to a higher source — the divine power of God himself who through the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ implants within us power from on high (Acts 1:8).

To help one earn a living. Some schools are devoted primarily to this. At the university level this purpose is often delegated to specialized colleges or schools: agriculture, engineering, business, law, medicine, education. Usually there remains one college or school which says that learning a trade is not its main purpose — the college known as Letters and Science, or Liberal Arts and Science, or Liberal Arts. More on this later. Without a doubt, many secular schools rate high when evaluated by this purpose. But here again Christian education is superior because it provides a higher motive than merely earning a living or doing a job or serving society: our work is motivated by a desire to please God who made and redeemed us. "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.... Whatever your task, work heartily as serving the Lord" (Col. 3:17, 23).

These eight purposes serve not only as aspirations we aim to achieve but also as criteria by which a school teacher or pupil can be evaluated. You might ask how your school (or your city's school system) comes out when evaluated by these purposes.

Missing the Mark

Admittedly, schools in the United States have succeeded in many ways, as stated above. If they had not, our society might well have stumbled long ago. But in other ways, it seems to me, American education has made serious mistakes. These mistakes are responsible for the deterioration of liberal education in our country. By liberal education I mean endeavors to fulfill the first seven purposes mentioned earlier. Note carefully that most of the dissatisfaction with college education in this country is to be found in colleges which do not have learning a trade as their main purpose. Where, for example, during the campus upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s were the disruptions? Colleges of agriculture? Schools of engineering? Business? Law? Medicine? Forestry? Education? No. Riots may have spread into these schools, but invariably the violence broke out within Arts and Sciences (or whatever the name of the college aiming at liberal education).

While the discontent has not been so apparent in the middle and late seventies, it is still present, lurking beneath the surface, manifesting itself in loneliness, purposelessness and even suicide.

Why has liberal education been struggling so? The answers are complex; books could be written on the topic. But may I suggest that educators over the years made several mistakes which, in their cumulative impact, abetted the deterioration, causing students to feel that college education was missing the mark.

I am moving now into more controversial territory. My convictions will be showing and they may differ from yours. What follows is based on forty years' experience in/with college education: as a student (both undergraduate and graduate) at the universities of Illinois and Wisconsin, as a faculty member and department head at the University of Wisconsin (with brief visiting assignments at Harvard and UCLA) and as an executive with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (a national college and university movement).

In search for understanding, educators have raised the questions of what, who, where, when and how and answered them rather well. But when they come to the question why, it seems to me they fall down. Too often they raise the question why but answer the question how without admitting to colleagues (both pupils and fellow faculty) that they are switching gears. They might raise the question, for example, "Why did it rain yesterday?" The answer could go something like this: "A cool, dry, heavy air mass from higher latitudes moved into our territory and encountered a warmer, moister, lighter air mass moving in from lower latitudes. In their zone of meeting, the former forced the latter to glide upward, and as it ascended it became cooler, losing its capacity to retain gaseous water vapor, some of which condensed enough to produce precipitation. And that is why it rained."

But is that really an answer to why it rained? It seems to me to speak to how it rained.

A more thorough answer (at least it would push the how answer closer to a why answer) would be to deal with such questions as: Why do air masses behave as they do? Why do cool, dry air masses move from one latitude to another? Why is warm, moist air lighter than cool, dry air? Why does cooling air lose moisture? Why does such cooling air behave that way?

Or take a second example: Most textbooks in earth science recognize that the earth's axis is tilted twenty-three and one-half degrees to an imaginary line that runs at right angles to another imaginary line that intersects the center of the earth with the center of the sun. But how many textbooks ever think to raise the question: Why is the axis tilted in such a manner? And what keeps it tilted? Why doesn't it oscillate and wobble? Even though most textbooks ignore such a question of why, teachers at least could call it to the attention of students. But how many do? At least, as we read this booklet we can ask the question next time we are discussing casual factors which might explain the basic why in reality as we experience it.

Similar examples could be found in every intellectual discipline. Students (and some faculty) are beginning to react against this type of short changing. Their minds are hungry for adequate answers to the why of reality. There is something deep inside a person yearning for satisfaction to basic questions. Why is reality as it is? Why am I as I am — with my strengths and weaknesses? Why is society as it is — with all its beauties and pollutions? In failing to bring such questions to the minds of students, education has failed in its first purpose: It is not adequately training people to think, and in particular, to construct good questions.

A second mistake is that too many educators disdain the past. They seem enamored with the quest for "some new thing." To be sure there is a place for research. Every curious intellect probes the unknown. But a one-legged man is a handicapped man. Collegians motivated by deep quests for truth should be hungry not only for the new fruits of research but also for wisdom learned through the ages. Secular education has succumbed to too much of the notion that the newest is the truest and has paid little attention to the lessons learned by predecessors. "He who will not learn history's lessons is doomed to repeat her mistakes." Here education provides us with a deficient view of ourselves as individuals and as a society. Not fulfilling these basic purposes, education in the United States has failed to help us ask and answer; How did we get to be the way we are? Where have we come from? We do not appreciate the past and its effect on the future as we should.

Too many educators confuse reason and faith, often implying that they conflict. Explicitly and implicitly they communicate the notion that the two are antagonistic, that one must choose between them and that intellectuals should jettison faith in order to abide by reason. This is a serious blunder. Everybody operates on faith somewhere in his thinking, and everybody uses his reason be it ever so limited. Faith and reason are two dimensions of the same intellectual endeavor. First, by our faith we choose where and how our reason is qualified to operate; second, by faith we make decisions in those spheres of thought where reason cannot "prove" which choice is right. Healthy faith and healthy reason work together and enable a person to maximize progress along the pathway of truth.

An atheist cannot prove that his atheism is true; by faith he chooses to believe that there is no God. Upon that basic premise, he proceeds with his reason to construct his life philosophy. A Christian cannot prove (as the scientist might use the word prove) that God exists, that Christ is/was God, that the Bible is reliable, that the Holy Spirit is real; but by his faith he chooses to believe those convictions, and upon those premises he proceeds with his intellect to study God's Word, to commune with God and be guided by Christ's Holy Spirit to construct his life philosophy. In both the case of atheists and Christians, some degree of "reasonable-ness" precedes the choice of basic presuppositions. Yet in both cases the choice is finally one of faith.

If all truth were discernible by reason alone, all intelligent and reasonable people would agree on question after question. The fact that equally intelligent and reasonable people disagree on so many issues indicates that something other than reason is at work. In this context education needs to do a better job of assisting people to see the interplay of faith and reason. Otherwise it fails to fulfill its first purpose. Truly Christian education is superior to secular by providing a perspective that recognizes the proper role of faith and reason.

Another mistake of secular education is the failure to help people develop their values systems. A person's values system is the procedure by which he marshals his intellect, emotions and will in constructing his answers to life's basic questions of worth: What is worth learning and remembering? What is worth doing and experiencing? Who is worth knowing?

A value system is chosen. The superiority of one system over another cannot be proven in the same manner that the superiority of one carpet over another can be demonstrated. Many people uncritically absorb the values system of those around them without carefully thinking through the options. They lack a firm foundation. When these values are subsequently challenged, problems can arise. Professor Seymour Halleck analyzed the problems faced by college students who had come for help to the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin.

In my opinion we are moving toward a crisis related to the manner in which values are generated and maintained in a changing world. As old values are attacked we are not creating new ones to replace them. There is a real danger that values of any kind may be losing their power, and that young people in particular may find themselves existing in a valueless world. There may be an inherent rightness in doing away with traditional values that seem irrational and cannot be justified. Yet, if such values are indiscriminately destroyed before they are replaced by more rational values, our society will experience an unprecedented degree of chaos.¹

American society today is drifting toward just such a degree of chaos, and a major factor is the failure of the nation's educators to help people develop their values systems. They are not helping people develop their values systems. They are not helping us make wise decisions about the best way to organize society and help each person experience the best possible life.

Another mistake is the emphasis on rights without a commensurate emphasis on responsibilities. The result is a me-centered society with individuals concerned for what they can get with little interest in what they voluntarily can give to help other individuals or to help society. Ours is becoming a culture of privilege without responsibility. Note, for example, the following:

During the early weeks of the 1976-77 school year, first graders in a public school in Wisconsin were given a paper to take home to parents. Entitled "Our Human Rights," the entire document read as follows:

I have a right to be happy and to be treated with compassion in this room. This means that no one will laugh at me or hurt my feelings. I have a right to be myself in this room; this means that no one will treat me unfairly because of my skin color, fat or thin, tall or short, boy or girl. I have a right to be safe in this room; that means no one will hit me, kick me, push me, pinch me, or hurt me. I have a right to hear and be heard in this room; this means that no one will yell, scream, shout or make loud noises. I have a right to learn about myself in this room; this means that I will be free to express my opinions and feelings without being interrupted or punished.

There was no companion document entitled "Our Human Responsibilities" suggesting responsibilities the recipient might shoulder in furthering the interests of other people. What kind of society would we have in the United States in ten years if every first grader in America were in a school where such a philosophy predominated? Again, education is not fulfilling its purpose by helping us understand our proper relation to society.

Finally, secular education has made a terrible mistake by leaving God out of the picture. Having sown materialism and humanism, our nation's schools are now reaping the crop. We are headed for trouble in our culture if we keep honing the mind and starving the soul. People with powerful intellects and impoverished souls are like high-powered automobiles in the hands of incompetent drivers.

I cannot understand myself as an individual if I delete God from my thinking. I cannot understand society (with all its pluses and minuses) if I omit him. I cannot understand the environment if I ignore him who brought it into existence and keeps it going. Nor can I maximize the pleasures of learning if I disallow him who provided me with the potential for learning. Some of my decisions may be reasonably good, but I need the help or his great mind if I am to make truly wise decisions. My own power resources are inadequate to execute those wise decisions if I refuse access to his source of power.

In a word, we cannot adequately fulfill the purposes of education if we leave God out. Most of our schools (primary, secondary, tertiary) have so thoroughly deleted God that one can go through an entire school system and never once hear a suggestion that God might exist or have anything to do with the world.

Several hundred years ago a Carthaginian scholar phrased it this way, "You, O God, have made us or yourself, and our souls are restless until they find rest in you" (Augustine).

Some Propositions

We see what education should be. We also see that it is lacking in several crucial areas. What then shall we do? Here are several propositions which may be helpful to Christians (be they teachers, pastors, or parents or people with some other influence in education) seeking God's will about this situation. These propositions are broad emphases that are intended to help us correct the errors currently found in education. Later I suggest specific steps to take toward these goals.

First, all truth is God's truth. Every academic discipline fits somewhere within God's great mind and the reality which he has brought into existence — and which he holds together. Irrespective of the particular academic specialty in which a Christian engages, the challenge and opportunity are before him to enter courageously and with enthusiasm to adopt a Christian stance toward all intellectual endeavors. As in the broad statement of purpose I gave above, all learning and truth is in the context of our obedience to Christ. No truth is separate from or outside of our relationship with him.

Second, we are interested in educating the total person to the glory of Christ Jesus. This is the other side of my first proposition. As God reigns over all truth, so we are ruled totally by him...[or] at least this is his intention for us. In a day when so much attention is given to specialization we reaffirm the conviction that we are to love the Lord our God with our entire self, and it is our challenge as Christians to think broadly, deeply and highly with our total mind on as many frontiers as we may each have time and talent to investigate. Admittedly there must be some specialization if we are to survive economically. And there will be some specialization if for no other reason than that the Holy Spirit gives different people different gifts. Surely these different gifts involve not only the amount of intellectual endowment but also the different styles of thinking and fields of interest that are possible. Accordingly, we are concerned not only to train people in getting certain jobs done (this is the realm of technical specialization) but also, and more important, to help them develop into full-orbed persons, attaining full potential as children of God.

Third, we recognize that the Holy Spirit is the foremost educator in charge of all ultimate education. It is our privilege and responsibility as Christian educators to respond to his teaching and to help others respond to his educating influence. "He will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13).

Fourth, in working toward the several purposes mentioned above, the questions of what, when, where and who are the basic questions of descriptive analysis, the questions of how and so what are basic to the interpretation of relationships; the question of why is the most important question of all. Understanding any aspect of truth calls for thorough investigation of the why. No matter what the field of knowledge, steady probing with the question why eventually takes us back to God. Indeed all the other questions if properly pursued are introductory to why.

Fifth, there is a difference between and yet a proper place for information transfer and research. The former involves a more experienced person helping a less experienced person acquire data. But high-quality teaching goes onward into those realms where teacher and pupil blend their efforts, both as students, to probe the unknown for answers which neither possesses. This we take to be the spirit of research. We believe the Lord delights in these two major endeavors: when qualified teachers and pupils transfer information to each other in a Christ-honoring spirit and when together they probe the unknown in an effort to discover some more of God's great reservoir of truth.

In this connection there are two extremes to avoid. One is that of information-absorption or information transfer devoid of creative thinking. The other is creative thinking (and its frequent concomitant of opinion-expressing) by a person who is too lazy or too superficial to lay a solid foundation of knowledge gleaned from lessons learned by predecessors. This is common among those guilty of disdaining the past. There needs to be a healthy blending of both study and thought. Study without thought is vain; thought without study is dangerous.

Sixth, in considering truth, there are two great realms to be distinguished: absolutes and relatives. The former consists of that knowledge in which some truths are absolutely established either by means of God's revelation directly or by means of his indirect revelation via our own research. In the realm of the absolutes there are right answers and there are wrong answers. Here it is possible to say, "I know." We should strive to know these truths and to teach them diligently to those who look to us for instruction.

The realm of the relatives is the realm of the ambiguous. This is the realm of mystery. Here we must make such admissions as "I do not know," "I think, but I am not sure." Here we should enter the realm spiritedly, investigating every component in hopes of finding new light. But even where such light is unavailable, we enter the realm of ambiguity unafraid. We refuse to concede that there is any intellectual area where Christians should fear to tread, assuming that we walk closely with the Lord Jesus, that our absolutes are firmly in place and that our minds are motivated to glorify Christ Jesus our Lord. At present this second realm contains numerous unresolved questions on which equally dedicated Christians hold opposing opinions. A well-educated Christian in this respect can cheerfully remain with the Lord Jesus and roll with the punches without losing his equilibrium regardless of the topic being probed.

There are two extremes to avoid. One says that all truth is in the realm of the absolutes and that there are no shades of gray in between. This is the mistake of some parents and teachers. This can have a devastating effect on young people who, in subsequent encounters with skeptics, agnostics, atheists and devotees of various religions, are unable to give intelligent reasons for their Christian faith, lifestyle and world/life view. The other extreme declares that there are no absolutes and that all knowledge is restricted to the zone of ambiguities. Situation ethics is one example.

As Christian educators, the challenge is to anchor firmly in place God's great absolutes (both his absolute positives and his absolute negatives) and then from these bulwark pillars to probe through the intervening zone of the ambiguous. Destroy the pillars (take away the absolutes) and the framework of reality comes tumbling down in our minds.

Seventh, these are two major styles of thinking, the categorical and the abstract. Categorical thinkers tend to be linearists or listers or splitters, showing how point after point, subpoint after subpoint, fit together in a rational sequence or arrangement. Abstract thinkers on the other hand tend to be lumpers and view all things together in terms of generalizations and impressions.

Again there are two extremes to avoid. One is to disdain the abstractors as being vague, muddled, pompous and incapable of clear thinking. The other is to disdain the categorical thinkers as being simplistic, shallow and superficial.

As Christians, we aspire to develop our abilities to think well in both styles. Here again we recognize that the Lord has endowed some individuals to think more ably in one style than the other. This means that there will be different styles of fruit emanating from the categorical thinkers and from the abstract thinkers, both equally devoted in loving the Lord Jesus with all their minds. It also means that in evangelism it may be wise to approach some persons with the style of thinking in which they function best.

Eighth, the knowledge explosion and the increasing rate in the rate of change are combining to frighten many a student. As the volume of knowledge to be known expands, the percentage which any one person can master grows steadily smaller. Overwhelmed and in the face of such futility, how can one make certain that the minute proportion which he does learn is important and that he is not missing the knowledge that matters most? This is where Christian education is critically important. If it fulfills its purpose it helps a student answer this basic question.

Lastly, there are several marks of educated people. They have a wide and deep fund of knowledge gleaned from diligent study in diverse fields of learning. This requires a substantial data base. Such people are conversant in a wide range of interests and can ask good questions in diverse fields (not just professional football or politics or some other single track). They understand relationships which are discernible between various aspects of that knowledge. They understand the significance (the meaning) of that knowledge. They make wise decisions based on their fund of acquired truth. Good education should produce some practical results; that is, in addition to the precious values of education for education's sake, there should be some impact on society. Christians who become educated should manifest a certain dimension of light in the darkness and of salt in society because they have been educated. It isn't that they are better than when they were less educated, but they should be different — if in no other way than that they now are capable of becoming more involved in solving problems of the world about them, of helping more people in need.

With Mind and Heart

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart...and mind...." Again there are some extremes on both the side of the heart and of the mind. One is adopting the attitude that the mind is corrupt, that the more we develop the intellect the less we will love the Lord with our heart, therefore, the way to maintain purity of heart is to preserve intellectual simplicity. Support is said to be found in such references as, "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom..." (1 Cor. 1:20-21).

At the other extreme is intellectual development associated with ego inflation and a drifting away from sound doctrine. Too many scholars abandon the love they had at first for the Lord and Scripture, they lose their devotion to the Person of Christ; Christianity becomes more "it" than "he"; they lower their view of Scripture; the atonement becomes an abstract concept rather than a specific deed by God in history; their hunger and thirst after righteousness gives way to a fascination for theological dialog alone; evangelistic zeal is replaced by a fascination for theological ramifications; and instead of intent to present the gospel clearly an obsession for intellectual sophistication appears.

Another pitfall is overcomplication whereby we obscure the truth by our lack of understanding or by our desire to impress. The other extreme is oversimplification whereby we settle for an elementary knowledge of God's revealed truth. This leads to failure in training people to love the Lord with the whole mind. We need to develop our minds to their highest potential while loving the Lord with full fervor. The God who created us in his own image created our intellects to be developed for his glory. As Christian educators, our aim is to be simple where simplicity is called for and to think in complex interrelationships where only these fit reality.

All of the above are errors because in each case one command of God is abandoned in favor of another. Total submission to Christ calls us to obey both. Surely there is the possibility of developing our minds to their highest potential while loving the Lord with all our hearts. If it were not possible, God would not have commanded it. The God who created us in his own image created our intellects to be developed for his glory. Failure to develop them dishonors him. But developing them to our glory instead of to his also dishonors him.

Some Suggestions

Here are a few practical suggestions. They fit into a strategy of Christian education in the home, in the grade school, high school, college, Sunday school, youth groups and the entire church.

1. Let's have a clear statement of our purposes as Christians who are active in education. The Christian dimension to education should appear, not by adding a ninth purpose to the eight mentioned earlier, but by infusing the Christian dimension into every one of the eight. We take seriously the Scripture, "to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:2-3). You may want to adapt the purposes I've suggested above to meet your own situations.

In a word, I believe that apart from Christ Jesus it is impossible to fulfill adequately the purposes of education. I believe he had in mind purposes such as the ones mentioned earlier when he said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) and, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31-32).

2. Let us commit to ourselves to the propositions mentioned earlier, namely, educating the total person to the glory of Jesus Christ, responding to the Holy Spirit as premier educator, probing the why of reality, the collaboration of teacher and pupil as genuine students, giving proper attention to both information-transfer and research, developing both reason and faith as an integrated pair, developing our abilities to think maturely in the realms of absolutes an ambiguities, recognizing both the categorical and abstract styles of thought, assisting students to master the knowledge that matters most, with the fervent hope that the students we influence will bear the marks of educated men and women. Throughout every dimension of the total education process may the Lord Jesus have the preeminence.

3. Let us help people develop adequate values systems. If education is to help people make wise decisions, if it is to guide their quest for life's most important knowledge, it must assist them in developing a workable values system. A values system is chosen. Every individual is either consciously or unconsciously (too often the latter) choosing the values system for his life. The choice depends upon the basing point which one adopts for life. There are four basing points from which to choose. One says, "I am the basing point of my life; therefore I'll choose a values system which puts me first." A second says, "Society is the basing point for my life; society comes first and others will instruct me in how to answer the values questions." A third declares, "God is the basing point for my life, therefore I'll adopt a system which puts him first. He will guide me in answering those questions which deal with worth." A fourth says, "I've chosen yet some other nonhuman, non-God force as my life's basing point." There may be other apparent basing points, but I believe they all fit into one of these four.

Students are hungry for a workable foundation on which to build their lives. The Christian perspective is that through the Lord Jesus Christ we find life's most workable values system, a system as solid as rock. We discover that system and also procure power to build upon it as we come to know him personally, as we commit our lives in following him, as we learn what he taught and as we obey him. "If you believe in me, and if you continue in my word, then you will know the truth, and then the truth will make you free." Herein lies the secret to life's most satisfactory procedure for answering all questions of worth which confronts us.

4. Let teachers express clearly what their values systems are so that their students will have a clear picture of the perspective from which their teachers view their courses. Students are entitled to receive it. Then let faculty members defend it whenever pupils wish to question. It is amazing how few faculty seem able to present such an expression. There are a variety of ways in which this can be attempted: in lecture or discussion sections, in a posted statement on one's office door, in fireside chats at home, or over milk shakes or coffee on campus.

5. Encourage pupils to spell out clearly their values systems, those concepts on which they are building their educational endeavor. Give them a chance to defend their choices when questioned by their peers. One way to get students thinking along this line is to ask them questions such as, What is your purpose in taking this course? What is your purpose in going through this school? What is your purpose in going through life?

6. Avoid ridiculing those who have chosen minority-view values systems. More than one Ph.D. aspirant at a state university has felt he had to hide his values system if he was to be awarded a degree. The trouble lay with prejudiced faculty who had chosen a system different from that of the aspirant and blatantly declared they would grant him no degree as long as he believed in the system to which he was committed.

7. Let's zero in and ferret out error wherever we find it. We Christians in education are not passive — simply understanding, enjoying and deciding what to do. Committed to the Lord Jesus Christ, motivated by his Holy Spirit, we oppose error and attempt to correct and eradicate it wherever we find it — to the glory not of ourselves but of Christ Jesus. We "dissent and reform, reject and reconstruct." ²

8. My final suggestion deals with government and will reflect a personal preference. I'll try to offer it tactfully, recognizing that the Bible (as far as I can tell) does not speak directly to this issue. But since so much of education in America is either a direct government industry or else strongly controlled by government forces, I believe the government must accept guilt for much of the deterioration of our educational systems. My proposal is that we request our elected government officials (at all levels — municipal, state, federal) to change statutes to accomplish the following aims: first, government will view education as it does retailing of food: which means that most of the service will be provided by privately-operated groups rather than by government-operated groups. Second, customers (students and parents) will enjoy the freedom of purchasing the service from whatever school they decide — just as now they are free to purchase groceries wherever they choose. This would be a major step in the United States today: it would require government to relinquish its almost dictatorial control of deciding where most of the nation's students shall and shall not go to school; but it would restore to the people a precious freedom which it seems to me any movement of the people, by the people, for the people should support. Third, students desiring to attend private schools but unable to pay would receive government-issue education stamps analogous to food stamps and other welfare payments now provided by government to financially disabled citizens. Fourth, parents sending students to private schools would not be taxed twice fro education as is now the case but would receive an appropriate deduction from their annual tax bills in recognition of support of education expressed through payments to schools. At first this suggestion may seem too costly, but it is my conviction that in the long run it would save government money for the basic reason that private schools appear to be more efficient than public — costs per student are less and, I believe, quality of education is better.

Some would argue that the foregoing ideas in a secular school would violate academic freedom, that a student cannot pursue the purposes of education with a Christ-centered values system and still be academically free. I would reply that an educational endeavor is not academically free if it fences off God and denies students the freedom to consider the possibility of his relevance to whatever topic they are investigating. Separation of church and state deals with organizations of social groupings — not with realms of truth. Separation of spiritual truth from all other truth is a violation of truth itself an produces not academic freedom but academic bondage to an anti-God and anti-Christ prejudice. The remedy is not propagandizing but rather "the open statement of the truth" (2 Cor. 4:2).

A Christian View

The Christian believes that he can fulfill the purposes of education if he builds upon a values system constructed on a particular basing point as follows:

God is the basing point. He is fact not fiction, a person not a vague summation of all goodness. He is invisible at the moment but very real. His character is all that is good and just. His actions reflect that character; he created everything and holds everything together including humanity, society and the rest of reality. There is great mystery here, so great that no human mind can comprehend more than slightly his nature, his deeds and his thinking.

God has revealed himself to us via Jesus Christ who was the visible expression of the invisible God. Jesus made the extraordinary claim that he was the way, the truth, the life — which means that our educational efforts fall short if they fail to acquaint us with him and his teachings.

God has revealed through the Bible the basic truths he wants us to know. The opportunity (and the challenge) to the Christian in education is to study the Bible well, to probe every sphere of learning for which he has capacity and time, and then to apply the truths of Scripture to those spheres of learning — and to every aspect of life.

On these three foundational convictions the Christian then builds the remaining components of his values system. In this way the Christian — believing in Jesus Christ, believing the Bible — is better qualified to understand himself as a person, to understand the society to which he belongs, to understand the environment in which life is carried on, to enjoy learning, to make wise decisions and to carry them out.

In a word, the purposes and the values of education come to focus in the Lord Jesus Christ "whom God made our wisdom" (1 Cor. 1:30). Our desire in education is "to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:2-3).

Thomas Wistar's hymn of the Christian Scholar is pertinent.

Our Father in Heaven, Creator of all,
O source of all wisdom on thee would we call;
That only can teach us and show us our need
And give to thy children true knowledge indeed.

But vain our instruction and blind must we be
Unless with our learning be knowledge of thee.
Then pour forth thy spirit and open our eyes
And fill with the knowledge that only makes wise.

From pride and presumption, O Lord, keep us free
And make our hearts humble and loyal to thee,
That living or dying in thee we may rest
And prove to the scornful thy statutes are best.³

John Alexander (1918-2002) was a professor and chair of the Geography Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was President of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship from 1964 to 1981. This article was originally published as a booklet by InterVarsity Press during the late 1970s and went through several reprintings.

Biblical quotations in this essay are drawn from the Revised Standard Version.

Notes

1. Seymour Halleck, Think, Sept.-Oct. 1968, 6. [back]

2. From a personal letter to the author from Nicholas Wolterstorff. [back]

3. Thomas Wistar, "Our Father in Heaven, Creator of All," in Hymns of the Living Faith (Winona Lake, Indiana: Light and Life Press, 1951), 571. [back]