Sunday, January 4, 2015

The Battle of Worldviews – How Schools Shape and Form People’s Worldviews

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
2 Corinthians 10:4-6
         
            The goal of Christian education is obedience.  As rightly pointed out by the Apostle Paul here, that obedience is at the end of his educating the Church.  God’s desire is for his people to walk in the path of obedience.  AW Tozer in his book “I call It Heresy: And Other Timely Topics from First Peter” argues:

Brethren, I would point out that obedience is taught throughout the entire Bible and that true obedience is one of the toughest requirements of the Christian life. Apart from obedience, there can be no salvation, for salvation without obedience is a self-contradictory impossibility. The essence of sin is rebellion against divine authority.[1]

Adam and Eve took the first step toward disobedience.  And ever since
the entire world is under a curse.  Disobedience never leaves humanity.  Humans continue to be disobedient to God.  Humans don’t know any better under this curse.  Deep down in their conscience they know how they have been transgressing against the law of heaven.  But yet they are incapable to choose obedience.  And this is the fate of sinners.  But God is not finished with humanity.  He has predestined some to be saved through his son Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:3-14, cf. Romans 8:29).  And now, as God’s renewed people in Christ Jesus, we are being discipled to learn obedience.  The Apostle Peter calls Christians as the elect whom he described in 1 Peter 1:2 “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.” 
In agreement with Paul, Peter too points toward obedience as the goal.  Salvation has been received in Jesus Christ.  Obedience is to be the natural result.  And it is the mark of God’s children.  Whereas through Adam the entire humanity becomes disobedient, through Christ God’s elect becomes obedient (cf. Romans 5:19).  In Christ we are enabled to obey God.  Therefore, as Tozer has pointed out, it is impossible for those who are saved in Christ to continue living in disobedience.  They have undertaken a new man, the obedient man.  The obedient man can’t continue living in disobedience.  This is what Paul says in Ephesians 4:22-24: “22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

            A radical change for those who are saved in Christ is thus expected.  The change from living the old self to living the new self.  The change is radical precisely because the mark of the old man is disobedience in Adam, whereas the mark of the new man is obedience in Christ.  When Horace Bushnell, in “Christian Nurture,” called for serious Christian education, he was highly motivated due to the fact that Christians neglected teaching their younglings how to become Christian.  They were so caught up with the doctrine of predestination and misunderstood it severely that they saw educating their children as a futile endeavor.  They believed that since it was God’s work to convert people to believe in Christ, so they freed themselves the responsibility of bringing up their kids “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). 
Bushnell called their irresponsible behavior as the “ostrich nurture.”  If we observe nature, we will find out that ostriches leave their offspring on the sand in plain sight that other animals can prey and trample on them.  Christians in the time of Bushnell behaved just like ostriches when they neglected the education of their children.  And so their children grew up wild, not knowing what was right or wrong, living in disobedience and rebelliousness.  But Jesus himself has commanded to “20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20a).  And “them” here is all nations (cf. 19).  This “teaching” is part of Jesus’ commission for the disciples to disciple all nations.  The goal is obedience.  The goal is to become like Jesus Christ, as expressed in Ephesians 4:13: “13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”  And Jesus Christ is the obedient Son of the Father, whom Paul says in Philippians 2:6-8 as: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

            Christian education, therefore, must strive to educate for obedience.  As Paul indicates in 2 Corinthians 10, there are many competing worldviews in the world.  Any form of Christian education must recognize this reality.  Informal education in the family is supposed to be the strongest stronghold for the Christian worldview that leads to obedience in Christ.  But just like what happened in the time of Bushnell, we too experience many setbacks today.  
There are many issues in the homes, that many times parents neglect bringing up their kids “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  There is another reality as well that there are young Christians who become Christians through evangelism while at the same time their parents are not Christians.  For these issues, many other issues I cannot name one by one here, many then look toward the church to provide Christian nurture.  For many centuries, the church has become the center of Christian nurture.  But yet, as recognized by Christ’s apostles, there are many false teachers infiltrating the church as well.  In the case of 2 Corinthians 10, Paul is battling the false teachers.  The battle of worldviews is fierce.  There are many casualties in the battle.  False teachers confuse many people with their eloquent speech and convincing presentation.  Many have fallen into the deception.  This battle is not over yet, it is in fact still ongoing.  In the rise of schooling, organized formal education, the battle of worldviews is perpetuated into this realm as well.  Today we witness that school is one of the biggest arenas for the battle of worldviews.

            Education has always been dealing with the formation of the mind, of the will, of the tendency, of the habit, of culture, and so on.  Whoever wins this battle, wins the world.  School has taken this battle very seriously.  School has claimed more and more domains.  Its place in the structure of society has become very prominent, that in our modern world today we cannot picture a civilization without school.  School gains prominence by housing knowledge.  People send their kids to school with the expectation that their kids will gain the necessary knowledge that will sustain them in life.  And the knowledge that school hosts is selected, only the best knowledge believed to have the power to achieve success.  School is not only campaigning against one another, but in reality, if we are careful in our analysis, we will find that school competes with other forms of education.  The weapon of school is knowledge, and will always be.  
When kids come home from school, their pride lies in the acquisition of knowledge.  Come time to share the knowledge, and the parents realize that their kids have been formed by the school’s worldview, so the worldview of the parents collides with the worldview of the school.  In the battle, what will the kids choose to continue to believe?  Often the kids choose the worldview being propagated by school.  Because often the timing of the battle coincides with the development of the kids who begin to see their parents as antique.  School, mostly, houses cutting edge knowledge, which in itself holds a huge power that captivates the mind of the youngsters.  The information age has catapulted the importance of school in life.  
Most people today believe that school is not only important, but also necessary.  In order to secure the cutting edge knowledge, school strives to station the best professors in the field in each respective knowledge category.  Therefore, how can simple parents or pastors compete against world renown professor or researcher or the Nobel prize winner and the likes?  For sure the authority lies with school.  The battle of worldviews has been won by school ever since.

            So Ivan Illich called for “Deschooling Society.”  That’s the title of Illich’s most famous book.  The structure of society has been shaped by school.  Every single facet of life is marked by school.  So Illich has had it.  He saw the failure of such system.  He saw that human society is being imprisoned by school. 
Access to knowledge is no longer free.  It is controlled by school.  It is determined by school.  School becomes the judge of what is right or wrong, what is good or bad.  It is the common belief today that whatever the school says is right.  For sure, school has won the battle of worldviews.  Regardless of what worldview it is being perpetuated by school, as long as school is the one saying it, it must be true.  Whereas, all other forms of education do not enjoy the luxury of the power of school.  All other forms of education is easily doubted.  They do not have the fortress as thick as school.  They do not have the neat organization of knowledge as tidy and solid as school.  They are not centralized, but scattered, and so easier to be attacked and subdued.  This is a scary picture.  Because if school follows not the truth, the result would be catastrophic to the entire society.  With the amount of power in its hands, the end could be devastating for whoever sets out himself against school.  Illich’s call is important, even though it would be impossible to do so.  His call is a reminder of what sort of power is now in the hand of school.  The formation of the life of the people depends solely on school.  And the most dominant worldview in school today is based on science.  Science in itself is not bad.  It is a good discipline.  Science has helped human life big time.  It is a gift of God to all of us.  But science cannot be the foundation of worldview.  Its scope is limited.  It can only understand what is past.  It cannot understand what is in the future.  It can only understand what is natural.  It cannot understand what is super natural.  Even its understanding of what is past and natural is limited to the scope of the knowledge as it has it.  It cannot go beyond what it can understand.  And wanted or not, science itself knows that it does not understand everything.  There are too many things that even the cutting edge science cannot know or understand.  However, since science has been so anchored within every stage of school, of which kids since very young has grown up with, it has been accepted as always true, permeating into every layer of life, including the spiritual realm.  No wonder, most school today propagates a certain kind of worldview that is based on science.  Anything that is contrary to the science-based worldview will be considered a threat.  This is where the battle is in our today’s world.

            Many Christians, after growing up in Christians home, in church, in Christian school, upon entering a school with no religious affiliation, begin to lose their faith.  Since the beginning they have been bombarded with worldview that assumes that science is the explanation of everything, even the existence of God.  Again, don’t get me wrong, I do not battle science per se.  I myself respect science as a discipline.  But what I am against is the view that uses science as the basis of the way of life.  Science doesn’t have that right.  Doing so is stepping outside its boundary.  But a lot of people who know nothing else or believe other beliefs other than science-based worldview have their way to push their worldview ahead.  With the power of school behind them, a lot of professors and teachers implant their belief into the mind of their students very powerfully.  With their minds easily impressed, they are ready to be shaped by the worldview of the school.  With the great strength school has, the battle of worldviews is not difficult to tip in favor of the school.

            Now, this fact calls for a more serious Christian education in all forms.  The challenge is great.  Our children must be prepared and equipped very well for the battle they are going to face.  
Teaching them that there is no spiritual battle is not the way to go.  They need to know that they will be attacked from many different directions simply because they believe in Christ Jesus.  They need to be ready that they will be target of antagonism simply because of their Christian worldview.  They need to be trained in such a way that they will be able to “take every thought captive to obey Christ.”  This is not an easy endeavor.  It requires a serious effort, a hard work, an earnest prayer, a fervent discipline, and a sharp mind.  But we are given “divine power” as Paul calls it.  This divine power is very strong and enough to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”  This divine power aims at the obedience of God’s people, the elect.  Once their obedience is complete, their disobedience is punished.  Their disobedience is when they reject to follow God.  They reject God by erecting for themselves an idol.  And their idol is the manipulation of science beyond its natural limitation.

            Therefore, we can’t neglect the education of our children.  We cannot adopt the ostrich nurture.  We cannot let obscure school to frame the mind of our children.  We need to bring up our kids “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  Even in the school that propagates the science-based worldview, Christians must strive to square off the battlefield.  Some people have endeavored to do so.  Ravi Zacharias is one example of those who try to level the battlefield.  Christians must not be afraid of battling obscure worldviews.  Such worldviews must be taken captive to obey Christ.  This is our battle together.  And we have been given the divine power to demolish the faulty arguments.  Besides, Lord Jesus himself has promised that he would be with us until the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20).  Rise up Christian soldiers, we march into battle, in the name of our King, Jesus Christ, to the glory of his name forever.  Amen.

The Business of Christian Education XCIV





[1] A. W. Tozer, I Call It Heresy!: And Other Timely Topics From First Peter (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 1991), 3.


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