Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth, the Colson Center on Johnstone Street. Late last month, the Department of Justice's Religious Liberty Commission heard testimony from experts and teachers about the importance of overlapping religion and education. Among those voices was Dr. Hutz Hertzberg, the Chief Education Officer of Turning Point USA's Education Arm. Hertzberg argued that the public education system could no longer be trusted to be To train children in truth and in morals.
He also highlighted the importance of teaching children these things from the absolute authority of Scripture. His comments highlight an essential but often unasked question about education. What is the goal of education? The answer depends on what is true about reality and the human person. because education is never neutral.
Every curriculum, lesson, teacher, and student enters the classroom shaped by underlying assumptions about who they are, what's true, what's good, what's real, and whether life has purpose. The essential task of Christian educators, then, is to guide students toward the true, ultimate goal of students becoming true worshipers of God, who recognize all of reality and truth as belonging to God. and who respond by loving Him with all they are, according to all that He has revealed. Therefore, Christian education has to become far more than just academic excellence in a Christian environment. Like so many schools claim.
It's about forming students who know and love truth, who can live faithfully in a fragmented and disorienting cultural moment, are confident in who God has created them to be, and who see their lives as lived in His presence for His purposes. that framework. of truth. hope, identity, and calling. That's the substance.
of a truly Christian education. In the very best of cases, a secular vision of education only offers students false and ungrounded optimism in human progress. In most cases, untethered from God's story, history appears random, the future uncertain, life disconnected from any greater purpose. In the end, students are catechized in a truncated vision of life and the world. and especially of themselves.
Within secular approaches to education, truth is constructed and ultimately fragmented. Every discipline stands alone, leaving students the burden of assembling meaning for themselves. In this fractured view of knowledge, truth is relative, identity is fluid, and meaning is. Is privatized, but the Christian vision of reality is unified and it is coherent. The truths of reality reflect the truth about everything.
Math reflects God's precision. Science is consistency. Literature explores human longing that point us beyond the temporal to the eternal. Because all truth reflects God's grand story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration, education itself is the pursuit of what's true, and it points us to Christ, in whom all things in heaven and earth hold together. In a Christian vision, hope's not mere emotion, nor is it wishful thinking.
It's secured by the resurrection of Christ and the promise of renewal. It's a hope that connects the meaning of the universe with the meaning and value of the work of our own hands. As students realize more and more that God has called them to this time and place within his larger redemptive story, their learning has deeper meaning. Godless approaches to identity have left many students hopelessly searching for value and dignity in superficial categories of sexuality, self-expression, activism, worldly success. or even perpetual brokenness.
Students are often told to define themselves by their feelings, their achievements, their victimhood, or their acceptance. In contrast, Christian education offers a vision of who we are that's rooted in the foundational truth that we're made in the image of God. In this vision, dignity, purpose, and value are inherent, not constructed, and they're restored to us through Jesus Christ. This identity is fully expressed in the scope of Scope of our human relationships, first with God, then with ourselves, also with others and the rest of creation. Any academic area of study can fit within one or more of those relationships and is best understood in terms of how God intended it, how sin has twisted it, and how the ongoing work of restoration.
can actually renew it. While a secular vision of education reduces calling down to career choice or personal fulfillment, Christian education frames our jobs and careers within a larger context of worship and service. Christian schools help students discover how their God given talents can be stewarded for kingdom purposes, even in this particular time and place in redemptive history. When done well, a sense of calling should extend beyond occupation to all of life. A brand new Educator's Edition of Truth Rising the Study serves this vision.
This free digital course available for continuing education credits in partnership with the Association of Christian Schools International presents the task of the educator within God's game plan for this civilizational moment. Every lesson includes Practical tips for application that are grounded in this big vision of life in the world. and for education. Access Truth Rising the Study Educators Edition and the full course library by visiting colsoneducators.org. That's colsoneducators.com.
The majority of the majority of the for the Colson Center on John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Billy Hutchinson. If you find Breakpoint helpful, please leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for a version of this commentary that you can download and read later, go to the link. breakpoint.org.
