On Preaching in the Classrooms in Public Schools

You said, "You have said that you think Christians who are in public education need to preaching in the classroom, Bible in hand or they need to get out of public education all together. I think I disagree pretty much 100% so if we can find some kind of way of moving on to that topic eventually I think we would be able to live up to our blogs title a bit better."

Why do you disagree with this? Are you opposed to this in "church" buildings? What makes a church building an "appropriate place" for preachers to preach with Bible in hand? What makes a school building an inappropriate place for teachers to preach with Bible in hand? Our God is Lord of all creation. Of water, earth, and sky. Everything that has breath is to praise the Lord.

If we don't give God praise, the rocks will cry out.

Properly understood, all education should cause us to enthusiastically praise God - not only with our words, but with our minds, and our lives. As we learn wisdom from the great events and tragedies of history, we ought to be thanking God and praising God for wisdom. And we should join the apostles in prayer, "'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.'" - Acts 4:25,26 and Psalm 2:1,2. As students learn calculus and physics, they get to see greater insights into the wonders of Creation. How appropriate then to proclaim, "O Lord, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth!" - Psalm 8:1. As students read some of the great works of literature throughout history, they can gain knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. How wonderful it would be to see that in light of God's word and the wisdom found therein! But even of greater importance (and I am convinced this is where the real education happens in a Christian setting), when a teacher faces discipline issues in a classroom, they can talk with the misbehaving student and discuss how the attitudes and actions of the student are truly not honoring to the Lord. We teachers have the opportunity to expose the student's need for grace. Then the teacher has the opportunity to adminster the justice of God with a consequence, and the grace of God with a compassionate and understanding listening ear, and a prayer of faith. Finally, in order for the teacher to truly teach things of value in an effective way, they need the grace of God, and the support of other faculty and parents to use the time in the classroom to help children see the value of righteousness and wisdom.

What a crime it is to not allow teachers to pray with their students! How foolish! How faithless! How wicked!

To refuse to allow and encourage teachers to preach the gospel in the classroom is to rebel against the laws of nature and nature's God.

There is no neutral ground.

We, humans, are created to worship. We will worship. If we are not worshipping God, we are worshipping other things or people or idols of some kind. In public schools, the ideas of secular humanism and the ideas of psychology are exalted in the place of God and His word. (Actually, this is really the case in many Christian schools too. Calling a school Christian and copying the same patterns of education that are employed by the public schools does not fix all the problems.) But the point is this: In both public schools and "Christian" schools, idols are being exalted. That idolatry must be confronted and torn down.

Psalm 71:14-18 say, "But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long, though I know not its measure. I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign LORD; I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone. Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come."

As an educator, these verses are some of my favorite. This is what real education is truly all about. This is worth fighting for.

Man's Wisdom and God's Wisdom

Trevor,

You said, "'How do we determine which views are to be held by the populous as a whole?' Put differently, if education is about wisdom and virtue, whose definition of wisdom and virtue are we going to use?"

The thing is this: In one sense, we do not determine which views are to be held by the populous as a whole. In a sense, that is impossible. How can I determine what views are to be held by the people of society? Each person makes choices. Those who listen to God listen also to me. Those who do not listen to God do not listen to me. For I am preaching the message of the Bible. See 1 John 3 and 4.

But in another sense, we can to some degree determine which views are to be held by society. We do this by persuading people to see the world the way God has commanded us to see it. There are all sorts of ways to be doing this: Prayer is a good starting point (that is, as long as we are praying in accordance with God's will). Reasoning with people, building relationships, serving people, preaching authoritatively, commanding people to turn to God, and utilizing tools of rhetoric are all tools that we can use. Ultimately though, our message and our intentions must remain pure, and our faith must be in God Himself, and not in any of these tools.

Allow me to be consistent with myself and quote the Bible fairly extensively now.

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise: the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our holiness, righteousness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ ad him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" -

but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truts in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:

"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"

But we have the mind of Christ.


I hope this clears some things up, but this is a spiritual issue more than it is an intellectual issue.

So, my answer is most definately: "The Bible." And I would argue that I have not missed the "crux" of your question. It is interesting that the word crux means "cross." It really is all about the cross. It would be intersting to see how the word crux has been used throughout history to the point where people use it today to communicate that they want to get down to the central point - the stasis - the fundamental presuppositions on which the entire argument/philosophy either stands or falls.

See, when you ask, "whose definition of wisdom and virtue are we going to use?" you are asking a fundamental question. At this point we are talking about presuppositional apologetics. You say that I am being circular in my reasoning. The Bible is the truth. The Bible says so. Yes, indeed. I am being circular in my reasoning. The reason for this is fairly straightforward: In short, I will not exalt anything over God.

The pastor of my church came into my Bible classes a couple weeks ago to discuss presuppositional apologetics. To illustrate this very point, he had a real neat activity for the students to do. He postulated with this presupposition: Mr. Hillman is the source of all truth. In fact, Mr. Hillman is THE TRUTH - the ULTIMATE REALITY.

Then he divided up the class into two groups: A group that believed this, and a group that didn't. They had a few minutes to come up with arguments to prove to the opposing side their point of view.

Well, it was a fun activity, and it was interesting to see the creativity of my students. I suggested that I am the Truth because I am so darn good-looking. Other people said that I am the truth because I have so much wisdom. And other people said other things. Then Pastor Kenney gave the explanation.

Take the argument that says that Mr. Hillman is the truth because he is so wise.

The person who used that argument compared me to a standard. That standard was "wisdom" or more accurately, his idea and perception of what wisdom is. So, what is the problem? He compared me to this standard - his own perception of wisdom, and upon realizing that I measure up to his perception of wisdom, he said, "Yes, Mr. Hillman is the TRUTH." The problem is that in forcing me to meet his standard of wisdom, he exalted himself and his own perceptions above me, thereby destroying his own argument. If he is above me, then I am no longer the standard of TRUTH; he is - or someone above him is.

Our God is real. He is the living God. He has spoken. He speaks. His word is living and active. His Spirit is real. He is the Only Wise God. We need not exalt our perception of wisdom or the opinions of the masses (democracy) or the opinons of philosophers (oligarchy) or the information made available by science (our ability to acquire data, interpret data, and draw conclusions) over God. We are not comparing God to any other idea of wisdom - because to do so is to exalt that thing over God Himself.

Hebrews 6:13-20
When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, "I will surely bless you and give you many descendants." And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.

Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchageable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.


And now that the theory has been firmly established, on to strategy.

I am not advocating violence against the state.

I am advocating that we put our trust and our hope in God alone and commit ourselves to doing things his way, trusting that God will bless us as we do His work.

In Psalm 90:17, Moses prayed, "My the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us - yes, establish the work of our hands."

I am contending that we humbly and boldly and lovingly stand up for the gospel. We should preach the gospel to those around us. We must engage our culture with courage and humility and love. We can serve people and build relationships - so long as we trust in God and not in our own works of service and relationship building. We must not be ashamed of the gospel. We must contend for the faith.

Now on education specifically, we have to realize that education is not the responsibility of the government. Check out my blurb on "Concerning Camden" at meditationsofdan.blogspot.com. I lay out pretty clearly the Biblical roles of government, church, and families there.

There are many great things that God would have us to do. We must pray. We must be led by the Spirit. We must be in God's word. And then, we must ENGAGE ENGAGE ENGAGE! There is a spiritual war to fight, and we have to fight it with every fiber of our being.

"The just shall live by faith." - Romans 1:17b

Be blessed, my friend.

Dan

One more time....

Dan, I don't mean to be snippy about this but I feel like I still haven't received a straight-forward answer to my question. Let me just make it super-clear one more time:

(quoting from my last post) "How do we determine which views are to be held by the populous as a whole?" Put differently, if education is about wisdom and virtue, whose definition of wisdom and virtue are we going to use?

If your answer is simply "the Bible's" then I think you are missing the crux of my question. You state that racism is a moral wrong and as such will never be a civil right. Your (tacit) basis for racism being evaluated as a moral wrong is the Bible. I state that not everybody adheres to the Bible as a moral standard. You say "So? Their wrong." Your basis for the Bible as a moral standard: the Bible itself. Do you see the circular line of thought? Our nation does not accept the Bible as the guide to moral living and telling them that the Bible should be their guide because it says so IS NOT sufficient. You may be right but the case you make is not compelling.

Again, this brings me back to my question. How do we, a nation founded on the plurality of views covering a wide range of topics and opinions, come to a workable guide to defining what our children should be taught? You claim that education is about instilling wisdom and virtue and have consistently held the Bible as the standard in this cause. That is GREAT but simply declaring that you have the standard does not make it so.

We need to find a way to bring Biblical standards into the classroom and your method has fairly consistently been "create a theocracy." Dan, you're a black-and-white person and this is a classic example of that. Perhaps you could think of some alternative suggestions for courses of action that call for something short of a massive political revolution? If you truly believe that is the only way to live a life of integrity then, well, I guess that's what you need to do. For me, I choose to find other ways that allow for smaller forms of success that yield results right now instead of trying to win the war in one massive battle.

Now, I would like to keep the discussion focussed on how to integrate Christianity into education and avoid pure politics as much as possible. If that's where you think this needs to head then so be it. Me, I think we have a lot more we can talk about in the field of education without solving all the world's problems along the way. I think it is important to our discussion that you answer my repeated question but if there is anyway that we can reign in our conversation to our original topic I think that would be great.

There is one question in particular that I would like to get around to eventually. You have said that you think Christians who are in public education need to preaching in the classroom, Bible in hand or they need to get out of public education all together. I think I disagree pretty much 100% so if we can find some kind of way of moving on to that topic eventually I think we would be able to live up to our blogs title a bit better.