bond-servant
Puritan Board Sophomore
This was fwd' to me. Wonder if he will 'get slapped' with a backlash of remarks from angry parents..?
BREAKPOINT with Charles Colson
------------------------------
Intelligence Plus Character
The Importance of Classical Christian Education
November 8, 2005
"Education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to
society.
. . . We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus
character -- that is the goal of true education."
You may remember that I quoted these lines, which come from Martin Luther
King,
Jr., when I was talking about a student's convocation speech at Dartmouth
College. But they are worth pondering, because they raise a very profound
question: How, in today's society, do we provide the kind of "true
education"
that King was talking about, that develops both character and intelligence?
Never have we needed more urgently to find an answer to this question. The
modern secular university can not cultivate character in a value-free
environment, because if there is no truth, there is no standard of ethics by
which we can measure character. So the university has simply given up on it.
And not only are our schools and colleges not teaching character, but
they're
increasingly abandoning academics as well. The typical student at a great
secular university will not learn much about the history of Western
civilization. My alma mater, Brown University, an Ivy League school with a
great
reputation, no longer has a core curriculum. You can go through the school
without ever knowing who Plato, Aristotle, Darwin, or Freud were. In fact,
you
could major in African drum-beating. So from my perspective, the modern
secular
university has abandoned both the pursuit of classical learning and the
development of character. That's why they're particularly dangerous places
today, and it's why Christian students must be well grounded before they go
there.
And this is also why I so strongly support the Christian classical education
movement that is beginning to spread across the country. It combines, you
see,
the two historic goals of a liberal education: the cultivation of knowledge
and
the cultivation of character. It shows us the continuum in the intellectual
history of the West that goes back to the Greco-Roman era and, therefore,
enables us to better understand our own postmodern era. If we cut ourselves
off
from the past, we can't understand the present. And it's particularly
critical,
in my mind, for Christians to understand the philosophical and cultural
currents
that have shaped our society.
Let me give you just one good example. Galileo, as everyone knows, was
thrown in
jail for challenging Aristotle's philosophical assumptions about an eternal
universe. But, as I mentioned in an earlier broadcast, Francis Bacon,
sometimes
called "the father of modern science," was influenced by the Protestant
Reformation, and he embraced Luther's idea about abandoning the constraints
of
tradition and going back to the root: the Bible. He applied this principle
to
freeing science from philosophical assumptions and instead looking at what
God
has made -- go back to the root of things, as Luther did. This allowed
modern
science to pursue truth uninhibited by philosophy.
Why is this relevant today? Because we're dealing with the same issue.
Naturalism is the philosophical assumption that binds modern science. And
this
is at the heart of the intelligent design debate, but you only see this when
you
know your own history.
I believe that every serious Christian needs to be classically grounded, not
only to understand the history of our own civilization, but also to contend
for
truth in the marketplace. So I hope that you will check for a classical
Christian school in your area -- as a place for your kids and as a cause to
support.
BREAKPOINT with Charles Colson
------------------------------
Intelligence Plus Character
The Importance of Classical Christian Education
November 8, 2005
"Education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to
society.
. . . We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus
character -- that is the goal of true education."
You may remember that I quoted these lines, which come from Martin Luther
King,
Jr., when I was talking about a student's convocation speech at Dartmouth
College. But they are worth pondering, because they raise a very profound
question: How, in today's society, do we provide the kind of "true
education"
that King was talking about, that develops both character and intelligence?
Never have we needed more urgently to find an answer to this question. The
modern secular university can not cultivate character in a value-free
environment, because if there is no truth, there is no standard of ethics by
which we can measure character. So the university has simply given up on it.
And not only are our schools and colleges not teaching character, but
they're
increasingly abandoning academics as well. The typical student at a great
secular university will not learn much about the history of Western
civilization. My alma mater, Brown University, an Ivy League school with a
great
reputation, no longer has a core curriculum. You can go through the school
without ever knowing who Plato, Aristotle, Darwin, or Freud were. In fact,
you
could major in African drum-beating. So from my perspective, the modern
secular
university has abandoned both the pursuit of classical learning and the
development of character. That's why they're particularly dangerous places
today, and it's why Christian students must be well grounded before they go
there.
And this is also why I so strongly support the Christian classical education
movement that is beginning to spread across the country. It combines, you
see,
the two historic goals of a liberal education: the cultivation of knowledge
and
the cultivation of character. It shows us the continuum in the intellectual
history of the West that goes back to the Greco-Roman era and, therefore,
enables us to better understand our own postmodern era. If we cut ourselves
off
from the past, we can't understand the present. And it's particularly
critical,
in my mind, for Christians to understand the philosophical and cultural
currents
that have shaped our society.
Let me give you just one good example. Galileo, as everyone knows, was
thrown in
jail for challenging Aristotle's philosophical assumptions about an eternal
universe. But, as I mentioned in an earlier broadcast, Francis Bacon,
sometimes
called "the father of modern science," was influenced by the Protestant
Reformation, and he embraced Luther's idea about abandoning the constraints
of
tradition and going back to the root: the Bible. He applied this principle
to
freeing science from philosophical assumptions and instead looking at what
God
has made -- go back to the root of things, as Luther did. This allowed
modern
science to pursue truth uninhibited by philosophy.
Why is this relevant today? Because we're dealing with the same issue.
Naturalism is the philosophical assumption that binds modern science. And
this
is at the heart of the intelligent design debate, but you only see this when
you
know your own history.
I believe that every serious Christian needs to be classically grounded, not
only to understand the history of our own civilization, but also to contend
for
truth in the marketplace. So I hope that you will check for a classical
Christian school in your area -- as a place for your kids and as a cause to
support.
