Here’s my latest “walk and talk” YouTube chat. I took a slight detour from the stuff I was thinking through in terms of Ukraine to chat about Christian Education.
For those who prefer to read something, my main point was that Christians need to be able to read the world around us in order to see it through God’s eyes. This is one reason why education is a good and gainful thing. It is worthwhile studying current affairs, politics, history, art, science, maths, literature, languages etc.
Secondly, I argued that this also means that education should be “Christian” in that we want to see things from God’s perspective. This is broader than simply things like evolution v creation of bio-medical ethics.
However, thirdly, that whilst there is nothing wrong with home-schooling or private Christian schooling per-se, we should be careful not to make these things an issue. First, because there are lots of good things happening within our education system as Christian teachers, heads and policy makers have an influence. Second because both those options are out of reach of most people.
Fourth, we risk both causing little ones to stumble if we make home schooling or private Christian schooling an issue. We also create an additional stumbling block as those we are witnessing to begin to perceive such things as cult like and an extra commitment that they don’t have money or time to engage in. Bluntly, it makes us look a bit weird.
That’s where my detour from my detour took off. You see, I have picked up that there is a bit of a sub-culture movement sometimes using a play on “MAGA” to argue that we should “Make Christianity Weird Again”. The argument goes something along the lines that we are weird anyway. We aren’t going to be cool or with it and actually our weirdness arises out of our standing against our culture. It includes within it arguments for all the smells and bells but isn’t limited to that.
“Make Christianity Weird Again” is based on a misunderstanding though. First, that if there are things that unavoidably make us weird then this doesn’t mean we need to make ourselves any weirder that we already are. Secondly, that weirdness is something not asked of us by God’s Word. This seems to be a contemporary version of the old “but we are a peculiar people” misunderstanding.
Scripture is clear that the Cross is a scandal or offense. That’s the only scandal or stumbling block that there should be.
Returning to Christian Education, there are plenty of ways in which we can ensure that our children receive this. I mention some in the video and will no doubt return to the theme in a later post.
Faithroots 