Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center. I'm John Stone Street. English poet John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, wrote that the purpose of education is to, and I quote, repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright. And out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, by possessing our souls of true virtue.
Well, today that kind of vision for education is largely absent, of course. And yet all education, whether clearly articulated or not, assumes some vision of life with deep cultural and political implications. This reality helps explain why the recent announcement from the Federal Department of Education drew such sharp reactions from across the political spectrum. According to the announcement, the Department of Education will transfer several programs to other federal agencies through a series of interagency agreements. A senior department official quoted by ABC News said that these moves represent a major step forward in downsizing the department and returning educational authority to the states.
Now, the plan does not eliminate current programs. It outsources a number of them. For example, sections of the Office of Post-Secondary Education will now be jointly managed with the Department of Labor. Other offices, such as those overseeing civil rights complaints and federal student loans, will remain within the Department of Education. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon noted to CBS News that this quote-unquote testing process may help Congress determine how it might eventually codify these transitions into law, advancing the Trump administration's long-term goal of devolving education authority back to the states or even closing the Department of Education.
Now, reducing government bureaucracy is almost always a good thing.
However, any attempt to minimize or eliminate the federal role in education without also reclaiming the telos, the purpose, the end of education, will ultimately fail. Returning authority to the states or improving testing outcomes are inadequate without this clarity about what education truly is and what it's truly for. In fact, education without purpose can be a dangerous thing. Deal Moody warned years ago that if you take someone who steals railroad ties and give them an education, all you've done is teach them to steal the entire railroad the next time. Technical skill is insufficient as a means of virtue.
Education must be guided by moral and philosophical foundations that are true. And it is here that the Christian worldview offers, and always have, both clarity and direction. Theoretically, Christians can offer a clear and compelling vision of education as the transmission of wisdom, of knowledge, and cultural inheritance to future generations. It is the purpose of education to shape image bearers into who they were created by God to be. While Americans rightly maintain that liberty and learning go together and that the success of Republican government requires an educated citizenry, Christians also understand that education has an even deeper purpose than career preparation or even civic literacy.
At its core, education should help human beings learn about God and the purposes for which they were created. That provides both the foundation for knowing truth and for stewarding that which is good and beautiful, as well as clarifies the limits that education desperately needs. As I wrote in Restoring All Things, God's Audacious Plan to Change the World Through Everyday People, a truly Christian education acknowledges both a created order and a moral order. And I quote, throughout history, Christians not only have seen education as a common good, but also could explain why it was a common good. To know about God's world is to know about God Himself.
And so learning is intrinsically good because it has this transcendent purpose. Further, from a Christian worldview, it can be clearly said that there's a moral order to the world. And so, for knowledge to be good, it must be properly ordered, with the technical understood in light of the moral. Indeed, the very first humans were corrupted by acquiring knowledge of something that they were not made to know. End quote.
Now, practically, of course, a Christian philosophy of education should always motivate action. Periods of reform create opportunities for entrepreneurs and institutions to develop educational alternatives. And that's what's happening now with the explosion of classical Christian schools, private Christian schools, home school cohorts, Christian institutes, church-based educational initiatives, and other innovations that are powerful means by which to form students who can understand their world, their purpose, and the God who made them. To put it simply, these actions and innovations can place as the talos of education the very first words of the Westminster Catechism, that our purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Colson Educators program equips Christian educators with this kind of vision to live with faithfulness and courage in this moment of incredible opportunity.
Through digital courses and the annual Rooted Educators Conference, Worldview Formation is connected with professional growth, all for the purpose of the intellectual and moral development of students. Please learn more about Colson Educators at courses.colsoneducation.org. That's courses.colsoneducation.org. Any move to curtail the power of the state, especially the Department of Education, is warranted.
However, if there is to be a true recovery of education, there has to be a recovery of the true purpose for education. Christians alone have the opportunity and the responsibility to articulate what that purpose is and to act upon it. It's only then that we'll truly begin, in the words of John Milton, to repair the ruins. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Andrew Carico.
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