New Directions in Christian Education
September-October 2015
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I am regularly confronted by two very different perspectives on the future. They are, in a sense, conflicting approaches, but they are often expressed by a single individual, sometimes in the same conversation. If we were being hypercritical, we could say that both tendencies represent a certain lack of faith, but since no man’s faith is perfect, both extremes are regularly expressed, even in Scripture.
This is the tenth in a series of articles about addiction pioneer Dr. Punyamurtula S. Kishore and his battles with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. otherwise.
I am an unrestrained, generally unrepentant, excessive book buyer and reader. I have only myself to blame for this addiction, and a few others, including R. J. Rushdoony. For years, I read Rushdoony’s books, including the footnotes and bibliographies. Then I started listening to Rushdoony’s taped lectures on history and education. Finally, Chalcedon began a series calledFrom the Easy Chair, which were largely devoted to Rushdoony talking about his readings, mostly recent, but expanding to some of his favorite works. Rushdoony’s wide reading and discussion of books whetted my appetite for every book he mentioned.
Whenever a particular culture has a problem to solve, it is wise to look around and recognize the current age. Questions like “What are the obstacles that our current generation faces?” must be considered so that our plan of attack incorporates areas of concern. Any school system with a Christian intent must temper its expectations in light of the many present-day obstacles. The typical Christian parents who refuse or deny a free statist education must search very hard for an alternative education that offers all the bells and whistles found in government education.
When you fail to make the Bible the starting point of thought, you end up constructing a worldview built on a faulty foundation. Couple that with man’s sinful nature and the wiles of the devil, and you have a recipe for a cultural malignancy that chokes the life out of people. When the Bible is not the focal point of life and the basis for instruction and behavior, the curses outlined in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 result.
Sobbing and tearful, an endless stream of teenagers made their way to the microphone to testify about what had happened to them during the weekend. Their words varied, but the same message echoed throughout the auditorium: “I accepted God,” or “I asked God into my heart,” rang out over and over again to the delight of tearful parents and classmates. Feeling like an evangelical killjoy, I sadly couldn’t bring myself to clap. Like Elvis, the gospel had left the building.
Much of the work in this field was pioneered by R.J. Rushdoony in his 1967 book, The Mythology of Science. Rushdoony didn’t extend his inquiry to science fiction, but rather focused on evolution as the central myth of secular science: not something derived from actual observation of nature, but on an unquestioned, untestable faith statement undergirding all of what we Americans have come to think of as “science.” We find that Herrick’s work builds on Rushdoony’s and reinforces what he said some forty years ago.