St. Brendan's Podcast
The St. Brendan's Podcast exists to equip you with rigorous, practicable, and affordable Christian education for many generations to come.
St. Brendan's Podcast
Symbols of Sovereignty: Christian Education Flies The Christian Flag
Do you believe this to be true? Must Christian education fly the Christian flag?
Of course, we don't mean this literally. The fabric you see flapping in the wind won't keep the bad guys out.
But it does serve as a metaphor, imagery that's meant to pull back the curtain and display our ultimate commitments.
Like it or not, every education is flying some kind of flag. Every educational system makes an appeal to a higher standard, even if that's just the appetites, the passions, or the law of non-contradiction.
As Christians, we fight to maintain a clear apprehension of our standard, God and His Word. To be worthy of the name, Christian education must appeal to a Christian standard.
Though, this episode isn't a history lesson; it's a call to action for parents and educators to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. As the winds of academia shift again towards emotional subjectivism and intellectual skepticism, we're standing firm with one simple clarion call:
Christian education flies the Christian flag. There is no other.
Join us now as we discuss!
P.S. if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for the New Christendom Press Conference in June 2024. See you there!
P.P.S. join us over on Patreon if you're looking for more school resources as well as community with other like-minded parents.
When a people is conquered, what is the first thing to fall? Often it's their flags, their banners. When Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans, what did they take into the temple? Their standard, the Roman eagle. When pirates take a ship, how do you know? You see their pirate flag. They hoist the Jolly Roger. But why is this important? Your standard, your flag, demonstrates your allegiance. It makes your loyalties clear and visible to all. Yes, it's a symbol, but it's also much more than that. It's a symbol that breathes life itself. It inspires, it emboldens.
Speaker 1:Do you remember the story behind our star-spangled banner? This comes to us from the Battle of 1812. Some years into the war with the British, they were fighting over Baltimore. When the dust settled, fear and pain for the Americans gave way to victory and valor. Though tattered and beaten, the American flag still stood, showing the Americans had not lost Baltimore to the British. Francis Scott Key turned this majestic vision into the star-spangled banner to crystallize the scene for posterity and to further unite us behind a common flag.
Speaker 1:We need to realize that the battle over Christian education, in like manner, tells a story of ultimate standards. In educating your children, you will fly some kind of flag. So what will it be? Which banner will you wave so all the world can see? Will it be the Enlightenment's reason, positivism's version of the scientific method, rationalism's law of non-contradiction, subjectivism's tyranny of untethered emotions, democracy's appeal to the majority, or relativism's wild wild west of irrationalism?
Speaker 1:As Joshua reminds us, choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We belong to the Lord. He is our God. He sets the standard. Of course we're not saying that reason is inherently bad or that the law of non-contradiction is the problem. God made them both and he said it was good. Yet we must remember them as tools God has given and no more. The problem is seen when they become idols, displacing God in His authoritative word. To cut through the noise. Then we must recognize that the way we educate boils down to ultimate standards. To what will we make our final appeal, or rather to whom? Whether through blessing or tribulation, we want God to reform our children's minds, as we see in Romans, chapter 12, that by testing they would discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect, and let them do so by looking to Him in faith. Welcome to the St Brendan's Podcast, where we exist to equip you with rigorous, practicable and affordable Christian education for many generations to come.
Speaker 3:Well, welcome to this episode of the St Brennan's Podcast. I am one of your hosts, eric Kahn, joined by Headmaster Pastor Kevin. Love Kevin, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. How are you doing? I'm doing great. You know, as I was listening to that cold open and you were talking about flags flying over schools, I couldn't help but think the number of schools like you drive by around, even here, but in states, and you see gay flags, you see trans flags. But it really brings up a good question like which banners are flying?
Speaker 1:over them. It's not irrelevant. I mean, I was just on Twitter this morning. I saw this really funny story. That's it's actually not funny, it's sad, it's sardonic, but, thinking through this, it was very relevant because this was, I believe, at Columbia, where there is some kind of hall I don't know all the details right, but there's some kind of hall where you know Antifa, I think it said Antifata was the banner that was flying over this hall and they basically said this hall Pro-Hamas, pro-hamas, right, that this hall belongs to us.
Speaker 1:Well, how do you know? How did the news? You know camera, as they're kind of zeroing in on it. How are they communicating that to the rest of the world? Well, it's because of the, the banner that they were flying, right, it makes it very clear, makes it visible, makes it obvious for all. So it's it's actually totally relevant for what we're going to be talking about today. Every education is going to have some kind of banner, even if you don't literally fly it outside Like we're not, we're not talking about that physically but but you are going to have some kind of banner, some kind of a thing that you point to to say you know who is God over this area, over this building over this family, whatever it is, you are going to have that for your education as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's fascinating. I would even on a on a on much better note uh, the guys next door, ben and Ethan uh, at New Christendom Press they were designing their office and so they're talking about we're going to order some banners to remind us, kind of, who we are as Christians, and I said this is really interesting. So they get the Appeal to Heaven flag, which is interesting, and then they get Richard the Lionheart's flag and I thought that really is an interesting feature of humanity that we're all going to rally under a banner. It really just depends which one. Before we jump in, I do want to give some pointers to people. We have a Patreon channel going. There's been a lot of really great content that you've been posting there, so we definitely encourage people to sign up on Patreon. I guess give me just a flavor of some of the things recently that have been on there for people who are patrons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a few things off the top of my head. The first one that just came out most recently was I gave my, you know, top five books that you need to read if you're trying to learn about classical Christian education. Right, that was, you know, basically straight from the headmaster's desk. What has been formative for me, what do I think would be helpful for other people Especially, was woke church on there. I think that was number one, number one or number two, I'm not, I'm not really sure, uh, but, but I want my people to not have to, uh, you know, waste as much time as I did. Like that's. That's a lot of what I'm trying to do through the Patreon stuff is, say, guys, you could either spend 50 hours reading through these books and just trying to figure it out, or you could just read these five books that I've already gone through. I've already given you little snippets of why they're important, depending on which one you wanted to get to first.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to save you a lot of time. I'm trying to take my own personal experience. You know the experience that other people have given to me as well, through their own readings and their own recommendations. I'm trying to compile all of that for you, to save you a bunch of time and money, where you can just say well, I want to learn about classical Christian education, where do I start? Here's the paper. I wrote it up. I gave an introduction to classical Christian education. You know about a page, page and a half, and then I gave my top five recommendations. So if you're looking for a place to start, that would be a really good place, right? That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to save people time and money. That's one thing I put out. Another thing that I would really encourage people to do, if you're able and willing, I started posting the memory work that we do for the school.
Speaker 1:So that's a big chunk, or at least a paragraph, in English, followed by a smaller portion from the scriptures in the original Greek and then in the Latin translation. I am giving that to you on Patreon, and then also I'm giving you the pronunciations as well. So if you're a family that says, hey, but I don't know Greek and Latin, I mean that'd be nice. I want to do that for my kids, but I can't be the guy, I can't be the gal to provide that. Well, I'm actually giving you the voice recordings as well. So I personally incorporate this into our family worship.
Speaker 1:So when I do this with the kids in the morning, we go through the English paragraph and then we do the small little snippet of the English, the Greek and the Latin, and I have a little four-year-old who's able to do this right, so it's not too far off. You can totally do it. So if you're interested in something like that, definitely head on to Patreon. We have a lot of other helpful resources coming out. So, but yeah, just trying to save you guys time and money and help equip the next generation and really help you equip the next generation. That's why I'm doing it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. Encourage people. If you go to the show notes you can find links for Patreon. Encourage you guys to sign up. Support this work. Also, get access to exclusive content, kevin. One other thing I do want to point out to people. We have a conference coming up in June. We do that's June 6th through 8th in Ogden, Utah. We'll be over at Ogden High School. It's a beautiful building but you'll be on hand as well If people want to come, if they, you know, want to talk school you want to talk shop?
Speaker 3:you know I'll be there, Kevin will be there to do that. So you can also follow the link in the show notes or go to newchristendompresscom slash conference and pick up your tickets Now. I think we've got about over 700 people yeah, that's what I heard Somewhere in that ballpark so that's going to be an exciting time, kevin. As we jump into this episode, I think maybe just a quick review of where we've been.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're talking, trying to answer the question of what is Christian education? Anyways, again, before we lay out our model, before we start talking methods, we have to be agreed on the principles. This is also really important because we're taking a fairly strong stance you know, I got some pushback for this recently but taking a strong stance to say you can't have your kids in public school, not with what we know now, not with what we're seeing, not with the great unveiling of 2020, with COVID and all that kind of stuff that blew up in many people's faces. You just simply can't right. So, but why are we saying that? Well, you have to understand how we're thinking through Christian education in the first place. We're trying to dissect it, look at it from multiple vantage points so that you can look at this thing that we are holding up in our hand, in a way, and saying this is Christian education as it ought to be. We're trying to lay out those guardrails so you don't stumble to the left or to the right. We're making it so that you don't trip right. If you can see that, you know, as we're considering, you have to pour a Christian foundation, for example. That was the first principle that we opened up with. If you recognize that, how can you in good conscience deliver your children to a public school that says you're actually not allowed to do that here? That's actually totally against the rules, absolutely antithetical to the system itself at our school. Well, yeah, then that's a big problem. That was just principle number one, right? So we're trying to lay these out seven principles for what is a Christian education. We have to be agreed upon that first before we can actually use that as the stepping stone to further the conversation, which is what we're trying to do through this podcast.
Speaker 1:So the first one we saw. Number one Christian education must pour a Christian foundation. Again, you're either going to serve God and you're going to fear God, or you're going to fear man and serve man in some sense. Number two we saw that Christian education imparts a distinctly Christian lens. Again, it's not just about the particulars, but it's actually a filter, it's a lens through which you're going to see all those little particulars. And then, number three last time we said that Christian education pursues a Christian scope.
Speaker 1:Christian education pursues a Christian scope. The reason that this is important is because a Christian scope. The reason that this is important is because we said last time that it's not just a small, truncated version of education, as, if you know, I know my theology fairly well and this is more like, maybe, the pietistic route and I'm just like, in a way, we're sheltering from the world. That's not what we were pitching right, that's not what we're saying for a Christian scope.
Speaker 1:We talked about that word, paideia, which is comprehensive. Right, we're trying to teach our children, we're trying to raise our children up in the paideia of the Lord so that they look at every area of life as a Christian, which means you're going to have to have a Christian scope. What we have to recognize, at least for today's conversation, when we're talking about this Christian standard or this Christian banner, this Christian flag, is that there are many kings who are vying for God's throne. There are many systems of thought, there are many evil forces who would be glad, they would be very glad for God to be dethroned and if we can recognize that, it's going to simplify our task a whole lot. It's going to simplify our task not just in the God that we serve, but actually how we go about the education itself. That's what I would say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's interesting and helpful. Kevin, I was thinking about this preparing to preach this weekend on Ephesians 3. And it's interesting because Paul will say I'm preaching the gospel, I'm a minister, but I'm going to war with the principalities and powers. And so just thinking about, even with education, how much is actually at stake in these things that look ordinary. But there is a spiritual war and there is these great realities behind it.
Speaker 1:The reason that's really important, as, as you're saying, that is because if we don't recognize that, we are going to get blindsided by the spiritual forces who would love. Again, satan himself prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Okay, well, you're a man who studied in the scriptures. You know what would be. The easiest way to take you out would be to take out your generations. It would be to sweep away your kids, and many families have done this, unwittingly I think, but have delivered their children over to Satan in a way, because they again. What is your weakest point? It's going to be in the kids that you're still instructing. You're still trying to raise them up in the fear and piety of the Lord. You're trying to instruct them in all of this. They're not yet mature, they're still lacking in many ways. We all are still lacking in many ways. But especially children, very vulnerable. And if we don't recognize that this is legitimate spiritual warfare, that Satan goes after the kids, right. Warfare that Satan goes after the kids, right. That Herod goes after the kids, that Pharaoh goes after the kids, right.
Speaker 1:If we don't recognize that our children will be swept away because we, unwittingly, will not be protecting them. We will not have gone out of our way to spend the time, the money, the resources, our strength to protect those children in a meaningful, robust way. That's what's on the line here. That's why we're again. Why spend so much time doing the podcast stuff, the school stuff, all of that? Why not just deliver them over? I mean, they're doing the two plus two equals four pretty well, I guess. Okay, maybe they're not doing that well anymore. Maybe they're not doing that well.
Speaker 1:But if we don't recognize that our children are legitimately in danger and I don't mean that as a hyperbole- yeah, I think that's a great point.
Speaker 3:So, kevin, given all that, as we push back against public school and some of these false models for educating children, false views about it, what problem are we trying to address?
Speaker 1:in today's episode. So you've probably seen this before. I mean, I know you've seen this before because we've talked about it. But this is the main problem. If I had to boil it down, I would say that the schools, public schools, but kind of the educational milieu in general that we've been raised in, reduces to this Catechized relativism, finally collapses into skepticism. So let me unpack what I mean by that.
Speaker 1:So relativism is basically just this doctrine, this dogma that has just been forced down everybody's throats, where they're saying you know no little Susie who now thinks that she's a boy. You're actually not allowed to say anything against that. She can be right and you can be right, we can all be right. In a way, this is the problem that worldview leads to despair. To say that everybody is right ultimately everybody knows this Just functionally, it's going to reduce to this To say that everybody is right is going to lead to everyone recognizing wait, if he's right and he's saying something diametrically opposed to what I'm saying and I'm also right, then no one can be right there. There is no true answer at the end of the day, and so what that's going to do is that's going to lead you to despair of even knowing the truth in the first place.
Speaker 3:Which I think is their point.
Speaker 1:Which they'd be perfectly glad with because, again, nihilists I said this in a post kind of recently but nihilism, which is the belief in nothing, right, like there is no ultimate truth, no ultimate reality, like life is just meaningless. You're going to go back down to, you know, to the, to the low, low carbon pieces that you were before. You're going to disintegrate, and who cares? Right, that's just life. Suck it up. The problem with that one is that it leads to despair, but to nihilism, because they believe that, well then, what is going to be the guiding force at the end of the day? Well, it's might makes right. You know, you mentioned power play.
Speaker 3:You mentioned that and I I've been reading Saul Alinsky rules for radicals. This was like the leftist playbook from the sixties, roughly. And he says in there he hasn't. The book's interesting. He has a lot of interesting points about culture, war that sort of thing, but he says, look, I don't believe in any morality, but we need to fight violently for whatever it is that we want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing's off the table.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so this is where you get the trans movement. You get all this stuff that's pushed violently, even though nobody can fundamentally point to anything and say this is true, this is right, I'm right, you're wrong, it's just well, we have the power, so we're going to force it down your throat.
Speaker 1:That's an excellent point actually. So you said you can't point to what's right or what's wrong. This is the thing that makes it so that you can't talk through it. You actually have to resort to violence. There is no means of making an appeal to anything else, because they're saying no, I'm right and you say well, why? You say well, because I have a bigger gun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Saul Alinsky will say he'll just flat out say there is no moral standard. Yeah, we just, whoever has power gets to do what they want. Yeah, so let's get power and then force people to.
Speaker 1:You know, Because that's the play. You open up the playbook and there's one play in the book that that's it is resort to violence. We saw this with a lot of the writing we use, uh, 2020, 2021. I can't remember when that was now, but but a lot of the writing, right, it's like, well, if you're not going to do what we want, then we'll be in the streets, we'll see you there, okay, well, that's, that's one way to get your will, but it doesn't stop there at physical violence. That's actually kind of where it starts it, or a that's kind of where it ends, that that's the end of the road, but it actually starts with intellectual violence in a way.
Speaker 1:I experienced this, you know, firsthand, when I was at the air force Academy. I remember we had a, a stand down day. I can't remember exactly what it was for, but it was like the LGBT or um, like that, that whole, that whole crew, that whole crowd. I remember joking with my roommate, uh, best friend, very good friend, still today, uh, I remember joking with him in a sad way afterwards that this whole uh, tolerance talk that we got and we were being talked at, not talked with, right, it was a lecture in a way, but this idea of tolerance is such a funny thing to witness because they basically say you know he can be right, she can be right. It's the whole relativism 101 kind of thing. The only thing that you're not allowed to do is say that somebody's wrong. So they are saying, unless you're saying Christians are wrong, well then that's okay. You're not allowed to say that anyone's wrong, except when it comes to your worldview, because you are wrong.
Speaker 3:But I think you're right and I think on the intellectual kind of what's been done to it, If you read a book, I really found helpful, it was the Coddling of the American Mind and they talk about how in the universities today, this is kind of the problem with Gen Z. It was like we cannot allow speakers to come to our campus. This all started, by the way, in like 2013. We can't allow speakers to come to our campus because their ideas would do violence to us.
Speaker 3:So this is another thing from like Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School and critical race theory was. They called it repressive tolerance, but basically saying we need to shout our enemies down enemies, any opposing viewpoint. We just don't allow it. We call them bigots, we call them racists. The whole reason that rhetoric exists is because we're trying to annihilate another point of view as invalid from the start rather than engaging with it, which, by the way, the whole irony of that situation is. Originally, college campuses were supposed to be the place where you were debating ideas, Like this was, you know, even in something like you know Greco-Roman culture, like you go into the marketplace of ideas, the Agora, and you do battle with them. Well, now, what it is, is it's like no, no, no, we can't even allow your idea because you're a hateful bigot who's doing violence to other people simply by positing views they don't agree with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wonder if that's because, in a way, when we get down to the might makes right kind of idea, it's because it actually adds opposition. Opposition is a bad thing and that's it in that situation, because truth can't win the day, violence and strength have to win the day. So they actually you, challenging them with truth is actually a challenge to their physical right to rule.
Speaker 3:The other outcome of all of this has been people are more emotionally fragile than ever. So, you've seen, because you can't, talk through anything.
Speaker 3:No, because the fundamental viewpoint of this gets to an anthropological question, to your view of what man is.
Speaker 3:If you view man as fundamentally a fragile snowflake that any wind of disagreement will crush them, then you're going to basically insulate and protect them from every idea.
Speaker 3:And then what's going to happen is and I think this is what you see in our modern generation is you have greater levels of depression, suicidal thoughts in our young people than at any time at least that we've recorded so a lot of this, and this is kind of the thing where education is not just education, it's the total formation of people. And so thinking through that and saying like well, no, I mean, even as a Christian, I want to put all the ideas you mentioned in the cold open. I want to put them on a table, I want to examine them, I want to dissect them, I want to dismantle them, but I want to go to war with those ideas. I don't want to say to my kids oh, you're not allowed to know about that. We want to think through it from a robustly Christian perspective so that our kids aren't fragile and when they hear things that they disagree with they're like game on, let's go.
Speaker 1:Well, it's counterintuitive right Especially, there is this sense, this instinct, I think, in us to want to coddle and protect, and that actually will make you more weak in the long term rather than stronger, which is what's kind of. Your main goal is to protect them from that right, but you actually have to help equip them so that they can, you know, tear down every lofty opinion that is raised against the knowledge of God. That's one of our principal tasks right in 2 Corinthians 10. We are actually trying to instruct them in that and train them with that. One thing that I think we are in danger of and I've heard this talked about specifically with the great books approach. So we're talking about pursuing a Christian scope. So that's going to be broad. You're going to be reading a lot. You're going to be reading even non-Christians, right, because we're trying to have you think through that in a Christian way.
Speaker 1:There is a danger of something like we do at St Brendan's, if you do it incorrectly, if you do it the wrong way.
Speaker 1:The great books approach, which is where you're reading some of the greatest writers, some of the greatest thinkers who have ever written, you're participating in this great tradition, right? There's a danger of doing that in such a way that you just become this really big brain, relativist right, and that's what I'm really trying to fight back against today. So we're not just saying the whole catechized relativism, but you also have this in some circles, even in classical Christian circles, or especially in classical circles. But you also have this in some circles, even in classical Christian circles, or especially in classical circles, that you would have somebody who's so conversant in all the great books and all of that kind of stuff, but they never. You know I think it was I've heard Doug Wilson quote this before, I can't remember who it was from but the reason that we have an open mind is not so that it can stay open forever, it's so that it can actually close on something, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:I think even Chesterton said something like don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out. Your brains fall out right.
Speaker 1:So, so you don't want to have that. We do need to be on guard against that. So how do you do that? How do you, how do you guard against that error, that folly? Well, you have to have an ultimate standard. You have to have some kind of filter, some kind of flag again that you're waving. At the end of the day, is it going to be the flag of nihilism?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is so interesting, kevin, because I happen to be reading through Herman Bavink, a Dutch Reformed guy, and he goes to university and he gets exposed to all this like modern theology, modern philosophy, and he has sort of this relativistic crisis in his life Like well, what the heck is true? And it's interesting because he said the thing that saved him was Orthodox, reformed Calvinism. Because he said what I realized was I need a big enough and broad enough scope worldview to deal with all these problems critically. And he said Calvinism in the Christian tradition was the thing that and so from that outflow you get Kuyper and you get Herman Bavink and stuff like this. But it kind of comes back to this same thing, like if you have relativism, you've also got to have a solution.
Speaker 1:And I think Bavinck was actually right that the solution is going to be a more robust Christian lens and scope right, yeah, leaning into that, not shying away from it, not, you know, covering your eyes to it, but just saying, you know, unapologetically, to say, well, I am a Christian, which means I believe certain things about the world and that's how it's going to be. I'm not going to pretend that that's not true. That would be denying something that's essential, even about myself as a Christian, not just about the Christian faith, but even my identity as a Christian.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then you have these great thinkers Van Til you could put him in this camp Greg Bonson, rush, dooney where you're like they didn't just say, well, accept Jesus into your heart and don't worry about the philosophy. That's why they got in trouble. They were like we're actually gonna dissect, dismantle and disarm what they're doing from a more robust Christian worldview. So I guess, walk me through some of this, more of the principle behind how do we solve this problem? Relativism, skepticism.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if relativism is the problem which ultimately reduces the skepticism I think this was something I picked up from Bonson. Principle number four, then, is Christian education appeals to a Christian standard. Number four, then, is Christian education appeals to a Christian standard. Christian education appeals to a Christian standard.
Speaker 3:So Well, I was going to say this some of these principles, I'm like Kevin, this is so elementary. But here's the thing like even in Christian schools, even in places where you would think this would be obvious, it's not, though.
Speaker 1:No, which is why we have to. I know we're breaking it down step by step. This is intentional. We're going through this slowly. We're trying to enter into this conversation in such a way that we emerge on the other side with a very robust view of what a Christian education is in the first place. So, yeah, we get to this. Where you have to, you have to appeal to a Christian standard. Okay, no, duh right. For Protestants especially, this is something going back to the Reformation and beyond, even earlier. You have sola scriptura, which means scripture alone. Don't buy into the caricatures of this. It doesn't mean that you know. It's you and your Bible off in the woods just trying to read and what does it say, and you're your own pope, all of that Even church history, tradition and you know theology of interpretation that all matters.
Speaker 1:All of that matters. What that principle really means is that our ultimate authority. So when we're thinking through issues, when we're trying to consider, you know, what do we believe? Not just about the Trinity, for example, you know, the economical versus the ontological, whatever you could get to some of that high-level theology. It's not just that, it's not just limited to that, but it's two plus two equals four, right In every area of life. But it's two plus two equals four, right In every area of life.
Speaker 1:What is going to be that ultimate standard, what is going to be that ultimate flag that we fly? And for us as Christians, we have to say it is God and God's word, specifically right Because God, if we just said God, that could be fairly abstract, like what does that mean? How can I point to that in this, that or another arena? But specifically God's word, what is God's revelation, the special revelation that he has given to us? What does that say about this issue? Even if it doesn't address it in the minute particulars, it does address it in principles and we're going to lean on those principles. But the ultimate thing you guys need to recognize, that we need to think through, is we do have a final court of appeal. As Christians, we have a final court of appeal. So it's not just foundation, it's not just lens, not just scope, but we actually have this Christian standard that we have to fly right.
Speaker 1:You don't have a choice. If you want to call it a Christian education at least, if you just want to call it a pagan education, then sure, don't fly the flag. But if we're going to say this is no, this is a Christian education for Christians, or at least children of Christians, even if you're not, if you don't view it like that, we're going to say I'm giving them a Christian education because that's what I've been commanded in Ephesians 6, say I'm giving them a Christian education because that's what I've been commanded in Ephesians 6, 4. The father is going to raise his children up in the paideia and euthysia of the Lord. So we have to fly this flag if we want it to be a Christian education.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's really helpful. And again, you know from the reformers a principle like sola scriptura. I think one of the things the reformers did really well was they say we have to build this entire from the ground up framework for all of life. We've often here at Refuge Church called that theological maximalism. Theology that comes out your fingertips, it's going to touch every area of life. There's a coherence and a systematic nature to a worldview and it's interesting. One of the questions that people might ask is okay, so you don't need the classic literature, you don't need Homer, you don't need the Odyssey? But what I found really interesting just the other day it's on my desk.
Speaker 3:I'm reading a book on grief by John Flavel and at the very, very beginning, you know, I mean these guys, as Spurgeon would say, they bleed Bibline. I mean they bleed the Bible. They are so saturated in the scripture in a day where you didn't have Google searches right, you didn't have concordances, you just had to know it by heart and they'll find the just most amazing references and applications from the Old Testament anywhere, everywhere. They know their Bibles. Yet it's fascinating when John Flavel begins his book on counseling and comforting people in grief. He begins with Virgil and Aeneas. Really, yeah, and I thought, well, and when you read the Puritans, for example, this you know, just right after the original reformers time period they were steeped in I mean Virgil, among all others. They will quote Virgil incessantly, but they're talking about Aristotle and they're talking I mean they're. In fact, in so many of the current translations they're very difficult because they have so many Latin sayings that they put in there and they don't translate. And you're like I actually don't. I need a footnote.
Speaker 3:But I find that interesting that you have this group of people, the reformers, who were so steeped in the scriptures, yet they didn't say well, homer and you know Virgil are stupid, we don't need that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's the ironic thing of you know, much of the conversation, or some of the conversation I hear today, where people would shy away from reading those guys and it's like, no, you just need to read your Bible and read your theology and that kind of stuff. Those same people oftentimes will still look to the heroes of the faith and say we need to be like them. Weren't they so great? Those guys were reading the tradition, those guys were reading Virgil, those guys were reading Homer and interacting with them. It wasn't like. Those people that they look at as heroes of the faith were just reading their Bible and theology. They were applying their Christian mind to every area of life and interacting with these heavyweights in the intellectual sphere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's really, really helpful. And I also think it's like this is the you know not whether, but which conversation, like you're going to have a worldview you will. So if it's not Orthodox Calvinism, for example, you would still have to say well, what is it? And I think, like, just to be very practical, what moderns do sometimes without thinking it, they just adopt a progressive leftist worldview and they slap a Bible verse on it and they were like why isn't this thing producing Christian children? Weird. And it's like, well, you didn't do all these steps. What you're talking about? Build it from the ground up according to a Christian standard. So let me ask you practically like do our students read Homer? Do they read the Iliads, the Odyssey?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we actually don't allow our students to read those things. No, no, yeah we.
Speaker 3:John Bunyan only we do?
Speaker 1:Just John Bunyan in your Bible? Yeah, they certainly do, right. So we read Homer, we read Plato, aristotle, we read Virgil, right? So, going across the board, yes, yes, we have read them, we do read them. We teach them to interact with them. This is how I've always thought of it and I think it's helpful just to think of it this way.
Speaker 1:If we want to really prepare our children, if we really want to prepare the next generation to do what they've been commanded, to take up the, you know, the shield of faith and to take their sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and they're going to, you know, fight the dragon, basically, of their time how are we going to equip them to do that? Are we going to have them read through just some some really weak attacks on the Christian faith or or just on on worldview in general? Well, no, you don't want to do that, you don't, you don't strengthen that way. If you wanted to uh, you know, get, get a bigger chest, and you want, you wanted to get to get better at bench, you don't do that by throwing fives on the sides on your bar. No, like, you actually have to add some weight over time and that is what builds up strength.
Speaker 1:In a similar way, then, with their reading, when they're reading Plato, when they're reading Aristotle, when they're engaging with those authors in an intelligent, robust, christian way, imagine them going through that crucible, graduating from St Brendan's, for example, emerging on the other side and then getting into, I don't know, feminism 101, right? Well, that ends up being a much easier target than Plato himself, right? Because they have been trained with some of the greatest minds that have ever thought. And again, you don't have to say great meaning good, right, hitler was great, great can be amoral, but some of the greatest minds, some of the most intellectually rigorous minds, they interact with them through their writings and because of that, they are trained in such a way that they get to some weaker little brother of Plato, for example, and they say, eh, I've seen this before.
Speaker 3:It's really interesting that you mentioned that because just because of St Brandon, some of the conversations that I've had with my kids my oldest, who's, I guess he's a fourth form, fourth Fourth form will graduate next year but it was really interesting because he's reading Luther and Luther's, like you know, aquinas, clearly no brain Luther's funny to read sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's just like being very sharp, talk about serrated edge. But Luther is going after Aquinas and Benjamin is, he's read Aquinas and so he says to me he's like dad, I kind of have a problem when modern Christians, you know, and even Luther, but specifically modern sort of like, aquinas is trash, the church fathers are trash, augustine's trash. And you know, benjamin said to me he goes reading Aquinas. You definitely get the sense like we're not even in the same league. No way. I mean, this guy was a giant of the faith and I know everybody's going to say, well, yeah, but this is pre-Protestant Reformation, I get it, and there's certainly issues where you could offer critique and you could do that, but you should do it as one who's acknowledging what you said, which is greatness. You read Augustine and you're like, wait a minute, the city of God. You're like, well, all these questions that we're like wrestling with right now, for the first time, you know he's thought of all of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not the first time.
Speaker 3:And not that every answer was perfect it never will be but again, a giant of the faith. And so I think about that and I think, well, one of the reasons that we should read somebody like Augustine is he was very deeply shaped by Greco-Roman thought and that meant a lot to them, and certainly we wanna evaluate it, we wanna have a Christian principles, lens, all that stuff. But I ask myself, where did great men in history, where did they come from? And it wasn't from watching Netflix, and it wasn't from being I mean, I've heard people say this in modern times, I think it's true, but things like sentiments like these, why does our age produce so few great men? And I think a big answer to that would be look how junky our education system is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, education. How do they spend their time? Who do they read? Yeah, okay, well, yeah, because we're reading trash. So it makes sense that you would have, you would produce weak, and I mean they are physically weak, but I mean intellectually, spiritually weak men and women. That's, that's who you're graduating in a way that's like your ideal graduate.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, my wife and I were talking about this. She's obviously teaching in the school and she said you know it's funny. The school has exposed me to the legitimately great books, classical literature, and what were you reading? She's like Catcher in the Rye, catch 22, a lot of Toni Morrison.
Speaker 3:you're like I'm sorry the greats so yeah, you just think about that and it's like, well, yeah, the old stuff is hard, but there's like CS Lewis would say. I think one of his favorite authors was probably Dante Virgil's up there, but Dante is probably the highest Common sentiment. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, again, look at Tolkien, look at Lewis. It's like, well, they came from something. Yeah, they were eating at a certain trough, and so it's not bad.
Speaker 1:I guess is really the principle that you draw from. That is, it's not wrong to have our students intentionally engage with these pagan authors as Christians. But as Christians they're going to have that Christian lens, they're obviously pursuing that Christian scope, but they're going to do it and this is the key. This is the key for today's conversation. They're going to do it while they're flying a Christian flag, while they're flying a Christian banner that says yes, wow, that is really an interesting way that Plato talks about the demiurge creating and, okay, interesting, like that's helpful to know, helpful to interact with.
Speaker 1:But what do I actually believe about this? Because you have to make a truth claim at the end of the day. Do I believe what he says about the world, or do I not? Well, I need to have some kind of standard, or else, again, you become this big brain relativist and we don't want that. We're not producing that. So, again, going back to sola scriptura, what is going to be your ultimate standard? Well, it's going to be God and his word, and I'm not going to be shy about that. I don't want my students, I don't want my own children to be shy about that. I want them to just grow up thinking well, yeah, doesn't everybody? Well, no, obviously they don't. You've interacted with these systems of thought, with these other pagan not believers other pagans as well. You know that they don't, but you do and you just always have Like you've never questioned it because of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really helpful. Kevin, I want to ask you what is the difference? So we got sola scriptura, we've also got tota scriptura, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I've heard this from a few different people, but largely the apologia crowd, actually, with you know, Jeff Durbin I've heard him say this quite a bit we can't just rely on sola scriptura. That's where you get a lot of the misunderstandings, the caricatures of what sola scriptura means. So it helps to kind of round out that idea by saying, yes, sola scriptura, but also tota scriptura, which means all of scripture. Yes, scripture alone, but all of scripture. In other words, what we want to do, one of our primary tasks, is to establish this robust Christian view in every area of life. So we've been teaching through this in our apologetics class.
Speaker 1:We've been going through Defense of the Faith by Cornelius Fantill, and he does that book, by the way, a quick, easy, quick, easy read. Yeah, that book is very difficult. You have to read through it many times, but, but I'll tell you that the time spent in it is very helpful, especially going through it with somebody who has read it, who understands it, who can explain it a little bit better. That book boils things down very well in the sense that he provides you know how do we think through life, just in general, as a Christian. Well, there's three different areas that we need to pursue. We need to understand reality as a Christian, we need to understand knowledge as a Christian and we need to understand behavior as a Christian. So when we talk about reality, we're talking about true truth. You know, metaphysics is another word that's given for it.
Speaker 1:But you know this is going to go back to the fundamental structure and substance of the world. Like how did God make the world? Well, how did God make men? He made them male and female. Okay, well, if you're going to push back against male and female, you're going you're pushing back against a fundamental difference that God baked into the world, that God made into the world. Or if you're going to try to consider, like, when we make something or think something, are we doing something truly original or are we recreating? Like one thought experiment I've given to my students before is I ask the question like have you ever made anything before? Have you actually ever made anything? And you say, well, yeah, I made you know, like a Lego starship or something like that. And you say, well, no, you didn't. You just rearranged some things that God had already made. You didn't actually make that.
Speaker 3:Certainly not ex nihilo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly right, you didn't make that. You know brand new, you reorganized. Well, we do the same thing with our knowledge as well the way that we think through things where we recognize that God already made the world, we're trying to think God's thoughts after him. That's how we're trying to train our students to think God's thoughts after him. That's how we're trying to train our students to think God's thoughts after him, to properly mirror and reflect the way that God has made the world, because there's no changing. It's true truth, regardless of if you agree with it. So that's reality. Then we're trying to teach them to think through knowledge, as a Christian as well. This is also called epistemology, but basically it answers the question of how do we know what we know?
Speaker 1:Sometimes you'll hear this definition given justified true belief. Knowledge is justified true belief, and I can't remember if we did this on a previous podcast. But if you take a clock, for example, and you were to guess, let's say, right now, you know, you guess that it's 1115 and it's not, but you believed it. Well, that that's not knowledge. You're wrong, right, uh, but then maybe you guessed and you guessed correctly. Is that knowledge? Let's say it's 11 o'clock and you said 11, but you just I mean just blindly guessed, but you were right. Well, no, that's still not knowledge. You didn't actually know, right?
Speaker 1:So true belief also isn't enough. You have to have justified true belief. In other words, you have to have a true and substantial reason to justify why you believed what you believed, and it was true, right. So you have to be able to explain that, and that is knowledge, right? We are trying to teach our students to think through all of that as Christians, so that when they are fighting again, even some of the pagan philosophers you have Plato or Aristotle you're trying to push back, not just about maybe they got something right, but they weren't actually thinking through it as Christians, and so that's why they erred to the left here and they erred to the right there.
Speaker 3:I think this is interesting, kevin, because so I was a double major journalism, classical philosophy yeah, philosophy, I remember. And so, going through each one of these, you know metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, these are all you know, subsections of classical philosophy courses you have to take. But I'll never forget my epistemology course was taught by a atheistic Jew and the class begins. He's like this is the theory of you know, we're studying the theory of knowledge. How can you know something? And he said, let me begin with this. And he holds up a King James Bible and he throws it in the trash can. And he was like we can talk about anything in this class except that Whoa Lots of profanity, yeah and uh, but anyway is this a Christian school?
Speaker 3:Sorry, Uh just a public university. Yeah, but, but it's interesting cause they were like yeah, there's a whole history of Christian thought on philosophy. It all sucks, we're not reading that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who needs it? Who needs it? Well, hey, that's funny, though, because that is that in itself is in an appeal to a standard, where they say actually, yeah, that's trash, because here, look at my standard.
Speaker 3:Well, it's funny Cause every like the professors you know everybody was like a huge fan of, like David Hume. And it was just funny Cause it was like every morality is a function of taste. So they would teach things like, when you say homosexuality is wrong, you're saying I don't like that, we would say, well, of course I'm saying that also, but I'm saying no, according to God's righteous standard, that's immoral.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's the justified, true belief piece right, that's wrong you can't just say it makes me want to throw up in my mouth. That's not the criterion for truth, that's not the criterion for knowledge. So you can't just make an appeal to that. That would be like belief.
Speaker 3:That's the lowest level, yeah, and I remember just like getting in conversations with him. But I said to him one time I said well, my taste right now is I really want to rob you and steal your car because he had a nice Mercedes. And he's like well, no, that would be wrong. And I was like, but I like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I like it. And he was like all right, well, class is behavior ethics. So that's trying to figure out what, what is right and wrong. How do our students develop this framework? Or given a framework, develop a framework for thinking through what is right and wrong, because you have to ask, at the end of the day, who's to say? Is it just whatever you know your emotions are telling you in the moment? Is it whatever feels right? Is it whatever your buddy said? You know, your best friend said and advised you to do? Well, you have to have some kind of ultimate standard. So, again, it's not just enough to say sola scriptura unless you also understand that to mean tota scriptura.
Speaker 1:You're trying to take every aspect of God's revelation and trying to understand it. As a Christian, you're trying to take this lens. A Christian, you're trying to take this lens with you. You're trying to fly this flag intentionally to say, yeah, I mean whether or not homosexuality is permissible or sinful. Where am I going to look for that? Should I look to my own personal feelings in my gut, or should I look to God's word, what it actually says? Well, yeah, you would look to God's word. So, again, this is every area of life that you're going to fly this flag, not just in like the pietistic kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's important too in our age that when you talk about tota scriptura, that we're talking about things like okay, well, when you answer the question about homosexuality, you've got to interact with Deuteronomy, you've got to interact with the whole of Scripture as well. That's a good point.
Speaker 3:And not just Now. You know if you're a good Westminsterian and then you know after y'all copied us 1689. But you know you gotta wrestle with things like general equity but you've gotta also say functionally, what does the whole of scripture teach? I think the other thing is knowing that this is going to be intense study. Like the questions aren't easy. I remember, like Soren Kierkegaard, asking, like how was it moral for God to command Abraham to kill his son? That's actually a really difficult question. Yeah, in one sense a child could answer it because he would say well, he's obeying his father. Okay, but morally, ethically, we should also not expect that every question is easy. Or I think a more biblicist approach today among Christians would be like well, where's the verse that says that the birth control pill is wrong? Well, you've got to think about things like case law, principles, general equity.
Speaker 3:So I think the other part I'm trying to get at is this is going to require a whole soul devotion to the study of scripture, not just thinking that God. What does he say? Wisdom has to be mined. Mining is hard. It's gonna be pain, toil searching after he promises to grant it. But at the same point, like we're teaching, we're passing this on to our students that these are questions you have to learn how to wrestle with, and wrestling as you know, kevin.
Speaker 1:Oh, as I know, it's very difficult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you bring up a good point, though. There are going to be many battlegrounds, but ultimately, what is going to be the flag that is flown at the top of every hill? It's going to be this, this big banner that's flying in the wind, it's majestic and it says thus saith the Lord For Christians. That is going to be the banner and, let's be completely honest, that's going to be the banner that's going to win at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thus saith the Lord, those who commit to that, those who say that's the flag that I'm going to rally behind, that is going to be the one that I am going to. When it seems like it's faltering, no, I'm going to plant that more firmly. That has to be the flag. That's the one that we are flying, because, again, romans 3, 4 tells us let God be true though everyone were a liar. Let God be true though everyone were a liar, regardless of the odds, regardless of what the rest of the world might say. God is going to be true. God in his revelation, in his word, that is what is going to guide us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really interesting, kevin, too, in thinking about knowledge, the theory of knowledge. When I was in college, I was going through this. I was going to a church I guess that was I don't want to say like fundy, but pretty simple faith type fundamentalism. But one of the things that I got from that was things like Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, which is true. But it was helpful because it was like, okay, yeah, you can think all these big brain thoughts, but it starts with fearing God, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah which we talked about too. Yeah, and then you get to things like Solomon. Okay, solomon is like. I would love to have a conversation with Solomon, right, and talk through. Like philosophy, it says that people from around the world were flocking to him.
Speaker 1:It'd be such a good conversation For wisdom. I would just mostly just listening.
Speaker 3:And then we're told in the New Testament think about the wisdom. It encompasses everything. It encompasses fruit trees and business and literally everything you know. This is the Tota idea. And then in the New Testament it says that Christ is the greater Solomon. All wisdom is found in Christ. In Colossians we're told that, all wisdom. So you think about however impressive Plato or Aristotle would have been, however impressive Solomon would have been. And then we're told in Scripture yeah, but Jesus is the wisdom, he is the logos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hidden in Christ. So do we believe that? I guess is really the question Are we going to run with that flag? Are we going to run with that banner? Is that going to be our sounding board? And if we don't have that as our sounding board, what are we going to bounce our ideas against? This is a legitimate question that parents, fathers, mothers you have to ask yourself this. If I am not intentionally flying that flag, what am I going to bounce ideas against?
Speaker 1:As a parent, when we're educating with these books? What are these books? As teachers as many of my, you know, child's teachers what are they bouncing these ideas against? Do we have this kind of banner, this flag that we are flying? As you think through your education, as you think through how you are educating your children, then you have to have this clear in your mind we will not allow any other standard, any other standards, to take the place of God and his word. So I want to encourage you, really to encourage your children to look to God in faith in every area of life, but especially in their academics. You want them to take this very same standard that you have in your life. You want them to carry that flag with them from cradle to grave forever.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, kevin. That's a super encouragement. Thanks again for joining me in this episode, and we will, of course, encourage people to get more content on Patreon. Check the link in the show notes. And that is it for today. We look forward to doing another episode very soon.