Education for Freedom
Christian education is thus not the curriculum with the Bible added to it, but a curriculum in which the Word of God governs and informs every subject.
- R. J. Rushdoony,
...[C]hristian education emphasizes that freedom is through Christ’s salvation and in obedience thereafter to the whole Word of God. Instead of teaching freedom as a radical independence from God, the Christian school teaches freedom as a radical and total dependence upon God. It insists on the interdependence of all men under God and in terms of God’s law. It is thus a liberal arts curriculum for which Scripture is the key book, and in terms of which every subject and area is principled and informed. Teacher and student alike are under that binding word; and are free in terms of their faithfulness to it.
...For the Christian, man is responsible to God, and to man under God and according to the Word of God. Freedom is from sin, and therefore it is freedom from ourselves and from other men, and from slavery and bondage to ourselves and to men, to become the covenant people of God in Christ, our Redeemer and King.
Christian education is thus not the curriculum with the Bible added to it, but a curriculum in which the Word of God governs and informs every subject. Only the Christian school, when it is faithful to Scripture, can have a truly liberal arts curriculum
(Excerpted from The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum by RJ Rushdoony)
- R. J. Rushdoony
Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.