Fragmentation defines modern, secular education. Students attend school K-12, move on to community or state college, all while trying to assemble the pieces of their education. They hopefully learn grammar and science and algebra and read important books. Unfortunately, without the gospel of Jesus Christ, these fragments of the educational puzzle will never fit together. As believers, we no longer wander educationally. Instead, we have unity and purpose in education: Christ Himself.
The Problem
As a professor in Christian higher education, I often think about a quote from Edward John Carnell. Back in 1948, he rightly summarized the state of education without Christ:
Having so departmentalized our fields of learning that they completely lack a coordinating principle of harmonization, the scientific method forces the modern student to wander from classroom to classroom, armed with no metaphysical principle to unite the disciplines he studies. Having been taught a smattering of ethics and sociology, combined with a piecemeal interpretation of history, our contemporary university student follows the pattern of an animated robot, for, though he can recite the canons of quantum physics, he has little to no idea what the divine sanctions of the decalogue are. Consequently, although able to classify the bugs of Borneo, he cannot solve the problem of personal happiness which harasses millions of groveling human beings. [1]
Modern education has no unity. While classrooms may be a hallway apart, philosophically and theologically, they may as well be on opposite ends of the universe. Without a “metaphysical principle” to bring them together, students are left with disjointed pieces of information, with no real meaning regarding how it all fits together. As Bradley Green notes, “True education requires an animating and inspiring vision, which is the very thing the gospel provides, and which is the very thing missing in most construal of education.” [2]
The Promise and Goal
Green is right. The gospel is the vision for true education for a variety of reasons. First, the gospel provides direction to education. Throughout church history theology has been described as the “queen of the sciences.” In a very real sense, the truth of God rules over the other disciplines.
Moreover, all the other disciplines like math, logic, English, and science should ultimately lead us to theology, and more specifically, lead us to Christ. The purpose of education, ultimately, is not only to make us more thoughtful and knowledgeable people, but also to help us submit to Christ’s lordship more fully.
Second, the gospel helps us receive true knowledge. Theology is the highest form of knowledge. The reason the modern student “wanders from classroom to classroom” is because he does not know Christ, or if he does know Christ, he fails to realize Christ rules over the classroom as well.
To put it another way, we cannot have true knowledge without Christ. When we trust in the gospel — Christ’s life, death, and resurrection on our behalf — our minds are changed. A sanctifying work happens not only in our hearts and our behavior, but even in the way we think. Our minds, as they are being renewed and transformed (Romans 12:1-2), will better understand how the cosmos is held together in Christ, which includes education (Colossians 1:17). Thus, when we read great literature or participate in scientific endeavors, we know the unity in it all is found in Christ.
Several years ago, a colleague and I co-edited a book entitled Christians in Culture. In it, various professors from our institutions wrote chapters on topics like philosophy, economics, literature, politics, and even sports and leisure. We did this because we had the core conviction these chapters would fit naturally together, because we have a uniquely Christ-centered view of education. That what was written about great books would coexist in unity with our view of economics, and that our science would harmonize with our philosophy.
As believers, we no longer wander educationally. Instead, we have unity and purpose in education: Christ Himself. With the Bible as our foundation, we can be sure the truths we teach are harmonized under the Lordship of Christ. We can move from classroom to classroom, knowing all of life is a gift from, and can be lived in service to, Christ.
[1] Edward John Carnell. An Introduction to Christian Apologetics: A Philosophic Defense of the Trinitarian-Theistic Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 228.
[2] Bradley G. Green. The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 20.
About the Writer: Dr. Christopher Talbot is an assistant professor of ministry and apologetics, and campus pastor at Welch College, where he also teaches courses in biblical and theological studies. This article is adapted from a blog published by Center for Faith and Culture from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary: cfc.sebts.edu/faith-and-education/
christ-the-unity-and-goal-of-education.
