Classical Teaching: Ten Daily Exercises at the Heart of 16th Century P...

Classical Teaching: Ten Daily Exercises at the Heart of 16th Century P...:

Ten Daily Exercises at the Heart of 16th Century  Protestant Classical Schools Johann Sturm was a highly  influential  German  educat...

4 leadership lessons from Rosa Young on leaving a lasting impact

 

During Black History Month, we celebrate the life and work of pivotal leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. However, few may know that before Rosa Parks, there was Rosa Young. I recently attended a showing of The First Rosa: Teacher, Confessor, Church Planter.  Produced by LCMS Communications in conjunction with LCMS Black Ministry, this 42-minute documentary gives a historical look into the life and work of Rosa Young, a strong, compassionate, determined leader who loved the Lord and valued His children.   The film depicts Young's life of service to the glory of God and her ability to enable others to have the same. Among her many accomplishments, Young taught more than 2,000 students quality, Christian education during a time when education for children of sharecroppers in the South was limited.  Many of these students went on to enter professional church work as pastors and teachers because of Young's influence. Read more about her life and accomplishments here. Young is a leader of our church body whom I deeply admire. As I watched The First Rosa and read about her story, four key leadership principles on leaving a lasting impact stand out to me. Here's what I've learned from Rosa Young: 1. You don't have to be a pastor to make a lasting impact in the church. In fact, you don't even have to be born and raised a Lutheran!  Young was born the daughter of a Methodist minister and wasn't connected to the LCMS until Booker T. Washington advised her to write the LCMS Mission Board when she was in need of financial assistance because the cotton boll weevil had brought economic hardship among the families of her students.  Young wrote the board, and a partnership was born. Furthermore, Young was an African American woman in an economically poor area of the South during the early 1900s.  The odds were not exactly in her favor to create an educational powerhouse for Lutheran education.  Yet, that is exactly what she did.  I admire Rosa's boldness and courage to faithfully pursue the good work God had prepared in advance for her to do despite the hard realities she faced. 2. Think and live outside the box. Sometimes help and new partnerships come from unexpected places.  I wonder what Young thought as she wrote the LCMS Mission Board for financial assistance.   She had no ties to the LCMS or anything to give her sway.  How easy would it have been for the Mission Board to blow off her letter, a letter from a non-LCMS woman down in Alabama requesting financial assistance?  And yet the Mission Board took her request seriously, went down to meet Young and toured her school.  They saw the work taking place and the vision Young had.  As a result, they agreed to fund the school, pay Young's salary and allow her to expand her vision by opening up additional schools.  All while, they took the time to train Rosa and teach her the Lutheran faith. This is a challenge and encouragement to me to seriously consider the requests of people in need and of people with whom I have no connection.  It also makes me evaluate my current network of colleagues and consider what new partnerships may be beyond my current reach just waiting to be formed. 3. Value Christian education. Young recognized the value of Christian education. Her mission from day one was to provide quality Christian education to those for whom none was available.  Something I celebrate among our church body is its ongoing investment in Lutheran education. As a product of a Lutheran grade school and university, I have seen firsthand the benefits of attending Lutheran institutions and its impact on my life as a follower of Christ. I wonder where today there are youth with limited access to quality Christian education. How can we individually and collectively help make Lutheran education a viable option for these students?  How can we continue to value and invest in our existing Lutheran grade schools, high schools, universities and seminaries? 4. Value young people. Young recognized the value of young people.  The film included interviews with some of her students. Now fully grown and graying themselves, many of them shared a similar story of Young seeing something inside of them they hadn't yet recognized in themselves.  She inspired boys and girls almost willing them to continue their schooling and become pastors and teachers and leaders in the church. We can learn from Young's life that the way to leave a lasting legacy is by investing in the next generation.  As parents, teachers, pastors, youth workers, coaches, etc., we have the opportunity to greatly influence the next generation of youth inspiring them to grow in becoming the men and women God has created them to be.   We have the opportunity to greatly influence the next generation of youth inspiring them to pursue careers in professional church work.  We have the opportunity to invest in the next Rosa Youngs. For more information on Rosa Young and the film, The First Rosa, visit https://www.lcms.org/thefirstrosa.   Leader Blog Tags: Black Ministry, concordia university system, leadership, rosa young, School Ministry, the first rosa, Youth Ministry Leader Blog Lutheran Education Youth and Families

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Themes and Dates for National Lutheran Schools Week 2016-2022

NLSW 2016 – Life Together (January 24-30, 2016)



NLSW 2017 – On This Rock (January 22-28, 2017)

NLSW 2018 – It’s Still All About Jesus! (January 21-27, 2018)



NLSW 2019 – LCMS National Youth Gathering Theme TBD (January 27 – February 2, 2019)



NLSW 2020 – Theme TBD (January 26 – February 1, 2020)

NLSW 2021 – Theme TBD (January 24-30, 2021)



NLSW 2022 – LCMS National Youth Gathering Theme TBD (January 23-29, 2022)

Transition Time: from CCLEBLOG to DIDAKTIKON

Howdy from Wyoming.

Since the Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education is blessed with a blog built into the new website, this blog site will be repurposed and retitled.

President John Hill of the Wyoming District recently appointed me to be the new District Education Executive. This will be our new home online.

You may also visit us at http://wylcms.org/edu.html.

Here is our new theme:

DIDAKTIKON

διδακτικόν: able to teach

1 Timothy 3:2; 2 Timothy 2:24

 Education Resources from the Wyoming District (LCMS) Education Chairman

The Education (schools) Chairman shall:

• work closely with the Teachers/Educators Conference
  to develop programs and professional growth opportunities for the workers;
• study and understand issues, programs, expansion efforts
  related to schools in our district and assist them;
• develop knowledge and resources from Synod
  and make the same available to schools
  or congregations wishing to start schools within our district.

Wyoming District Bylaw 3.401e

You will also be able to read more education-related book reviews at our sister site, Lutheran Book Review.

Rev. Paul J Cain

FW: Great Stuff — The Good News About Classical Lutheran Education

Reposted by Friends…

 

Feed: Steadfast Lutherans
Posted on: Saturday, February 15, 2014 7:08 AM
Author: Norm Fisher
Subject: Great Stuff — The Good News About Classical Lutheran Education

 

Great article by Erika E. Mildred found over on CCLE.org's website:   Slowly but surely, for the past few decades, the discussion of "Classical" education has re-entered formal and informal conversation among Christian educators and parents. Lutherans as well have joined in this debate, and those in favor of implementing what Dorothy Sayers called the "lost tools of learning" have founded Classical Lutheran schools, have organized Classical Lutheran education conferences, and have chosen to homeschool their Lutheran children using Classical curricula and methodology.  However, even with this growing presence, misconceptions abound, especially for those Lutherans whose exposure to Classical Lutheran education has been minimal. Below are twelve truths about Classical Lutheran education today and what is actually taking place in our Classical Lutheran classrooms and homes all across the country. Classical Lutheran education is for all students, regardless of ability. As the subtitle of Cheryl Swope's new book Simply Classical articulates, Classical Lutheran education is truly a "beautiful education for any child."  Acquiring knowledge through the application of the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric) for every subject allows students of all abilities to engage in classical education.  The very stages of the Trivium build confidence and increase a student's drive to dive more deeply into the subject matter.  Classical Lutheran education tells children, "You can do this!" and then gives them the very tools they need to succeed. A Classical Lutheran education can help any child reach his or her full potential, not merely an artificial external standard of being "on grade level."  Ironically, it was the development of the progressive model of education in the late 1890's and early 1900's in the United States that removed a Classical model of education from the lives of some students, deeming them to be better suited for trade-specific training.  The best educational track became reserved for the country's best and most promising, while the remaining students were trained in skills necessary to develop an able workforce in the boom of the American Industrial Revolution.  However, this tracking approach both subtly and overtly tells students that they are not all capable and deserving of a rich, well-rounded education.  Classical Lutheran education says all children deserve to learn what is good, true, and beautiful, to learn each subject in a logical and orderly way using the tools of the Trivium and Quadrivium, and to develop all of their God-given abilities and talents for His glory. Classical Lutheran education enables academic prowess and mastery by having students learn Latin, memorize facts and figures, and drill all subjects to mastery, but it also equally addresses the students' heart and soul. While it is true that Classical Lutheran education develops a student's intellect and provides a student with all the "skills" needed for higher-level learning and the workforce, this is not the primary goal or purpose of such an education.  As students develop beyond the grammar and logic stages to the rhetoric stage, the facts, figures, memorizing, and conjugating lay the groundwork for the deepest understanding of life's most essential questions from a Lutheran worldview: Who am I? How did I get here?  Where am I going?  How will I get there?  Why is life worth living and worth living well?  In Classical Lutheran education, we do not drill for its own sake nor do we drill to produce "super students"; rather, we lay the foundation of knowledge within students in order to build upon this foundation. We seek to help them learn, discover, and expound upon what it means to be human, to be Christian, to be Lutheran, to be a saved child of God, to be alive and here on this earth to serve God's purposes to those around us.  As students grow from childhood into adulthood, those existential questions arise, and our students are prepared to give and defend their answers and to walk through this post-modern, relativistic world confidently and clinging to the hope we have through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Many students LOVE drill work and memorization! Our younger students (through 3rd or 4th grade) are equipped with minds that are eager to memorize.  God designed the growing human brain to thrive on grammar-level work in the early years of life.  This is why children of 1st-generation Americans will often learn English as well as their parents' native tongue more quickly than their parents and why many schools are now including foreign language in the elementary years.  And, older students do not mind memorization and drill work if they are provided with sound reasons why or how the memorized information will help them or is useful.  After all, these students are entering the Dialectic/Logic stage of learning, and their demand that the drills be for of some good use is valid.  Classical Lutheran teachers have mastered ways to make drill work and memorization effective; chanting, clapping, actions/movement, visualization techniques, and the like all help the students achieve grammatical mastery of subjects, allowing them to transition easily into higher-level thinking activities as they develop.  If teenagers and adults at a basketball game can be emotionally moved by the repetitive cheer of "You say, 'Win!' I say, 'Tonight!'  Win…tonight!" then certainly our students can enjoy the drills that will propel them into academic excellence and a well-trained mind. The Classical Lutheran classroom can be characterized by stimulating lecture with enthusiastic repetition, passionate discussion between teacher and students, and creative applications. Teacher-led instruction (sometimes labeled "lecture" with an assumed negative connotation) is at the heart of imparting knowledge in a Classical Lutheran classroom.  Classical Lutheran educators and homeschoolers believe that the teacher is the expert.  Like a football coach, a piano teacher, or a pastor giving a Sunday sermon, we expect our teachers to impart knowledge to our students. To characterize this activity as tedious, sterile, or monotonous is to place these adjectival descriptions upon the teacher himself or herself.  One only needs to see classrooms at our Classical Lutheran schools or homeschools to know this is not the case.  We teach with chants; we teach with song; we teach with passion and excitement.  Moreover, what we teach is important.  We don't just have children memorize for its own sake (although this activity in and of itself is a worthy endeavor for cognitive development).  We as Classical Lutheran educators know that having God's Word and faithful interpretations of that Word "imprinted on their heart," having Latin vocabulary at their disposal, having multiplication tables and unit conversions available without a calculator, and having dates and major events throughout Western Civilization traveling with them as they experience life all allow our students to fully participate in the Great Conversation, to discover what is true, good, and beautiful in God's orderly creation, and to defend their faith. Latin is a "dead" language, but this is a good thing! From a purely definitional sense, this statement is not a misnomer.  Latin is a "dead" language, simply meaning it is a language that is no longer spoken in a region of the world today as a modern language.  This is one of the chief reasons that Latin should be taught to all our students at a very young age.  A dead language is fixed.  It is permanent.  It does not change due to the usage of modern speakers.  This consistency makes it a very easy language for students to study and to understand.  (Just think of all the "exceptions" English contains in spelling, usage, punctuation, grammar, and the like, and you can quickly conclude that a language that does not change can be a welcome relief to students trying to learn it.)  In addition, studying the vocabulary and the grammar of Latin aids students immensely in learning English synonyms, antonyms, prefix and suffix meanings, vocabulary, and grammatical structure and syntax.  It is also a language of the early Church, which allows Classical Lutheran schools and homeschools to teach the Faith to our children during language lessons.  Indeed, as Cheryl Lowe says, "Latin is not dead; it is immortal!" Classical, Lutheran educators are joyful servants of our Lord. Like non-Classical, Lutheran counterparts, Classical Lutheran educators teach in our schools and at home because they love the children whom they serve.  Classical Lutheran schools and homeschools strive to instill into our children a love of learning and a heart to see what is good, true, and beautiful in the world God created.  That joy, passion, and love for learning and for education pours out of our Classical Lutheran teachers and homeschool parents on a daily basis. Cooperative learning, self-guided learning, and inductive learning methods are not superior to the teacher-centered instruction found in Classical Lutheran education. Supporters of Classical education believe that students are best served when they can learn from the wisdom of those more knowledgeable and experienced than they.  The Classical Lutheran educator is the expert in the subject matter itself, in the understanding of scope and sequence regarding the material and what precedes and follows it, and in the assessment of knowledge that is gained and skills that are mastered in any subject area.  To put these responsibilities upon the students themselves inappropriately places a burden upon them.  It can cause increasing disdain for the subject matter, place additional stress upon students (who are themselves still understanding the material) to disseminate their own knowledge to peers, and cause added conflict and tension between students as they compare themselves to each other rather than keeping their focus on doing their best with all that God has given them.  The students' job at school is to learn, to be a good "disciple."  The teacher's job is to teach. Many students LOVE academics and the discipline of learning. The "great conversation" that occurs in our Classical Lutheran schools and homeschools is interesting, valuable, and important in its own right.  Young people enjoy being successful, mastering material, and achieving goals.   This is not to say that Classical Lutheran educators do not make education "come to life" for our students.  Neither, however, do we apologize for the rigor and discipline that is required of our students.  Moreover, we have seen students thrive within these rigorous activities, and when they find success, the price they paid makes their academic victories that much sweeter.   Classical Lutheran education is a growing, vibrant movement in Lutheran schools and homeschools in America. Classical education is nothing new.  It has been revitalized and re-introduced into American Christian education. In the past several decades, Lutherans have promoted Classical education by establishing Classical Lutheran schools, providing training for educators through conferences and certification programs, and developing resources to share the vision of Classical education to other Lutherans and Christians in post-modern America.  The Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Educators (CCLE) was founded in 2005 and offers a summer conference each year to equip pastors, principals, teachers, and homeschool families.  Currently there are 25 Classical Lutheran schools affiliated with CCLE across the country.  Each year, more Lutheran schools inquire about Classical education and the possibility of retrofitting their school to a Classical curriculum.  Currently, 171 Lutheran homeschool families across the country participate in the CCLE Email Discussion Group. Mathematics, the sciences, and the arts are also a vibrant part of Classical curricula.  The Seven Liberal Arts of Western Culture can be found within the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric) and the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy).  While the Trivium deals with the study and art of verbal language, the Quadrivium applies study to the theory and language of numbers: numbers in space, numbers in time, and numbers in space and time (to paraphrase Boethius).  The Quadrivium plays an important role in our Classical Lutheran schools and homeschools as well, helping children think linearly, analytically, and creatively. The Classical Lutheran educational movement is here to stay. Classical education is the education of Socrates, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Luther, Galileo, our country's founding fathers, and many other great minds throughout the history of Western Civilization.  It is a way of teaching that has been tested to determine its ultimate value to the individual and to society.   Classical Lutheran education can be adopted and implemented in established Lutheran schools. With the help of established Classical Lutheran schools, the CCLE, and Lutheran homeschool families, any Lutheran school can make the transition into a Classical curriculum and methodology.  It will take work on the part of the pastor, principal, teachers, parents, and students, but the results from this change in educational philosophy and pedagogy will far outweigh the labors to transition the school into a Classical one.  We believe this is the future of Lutheran education in America!   The major pitfalls facing all of our American schools (students' failing to meet minimum standards, the minimization of the fine arts, student apathy, teaching of assertions such as evolution, and the removal of God from our schools and communities) can all be addressed with Classical Lutheran education.     Whether you are a principal of a Lutheran grade school, a pastor of a Lutheran church, a Lutheran teacher, or an interested parent, we encourage you to join us in the "great conversation."  Here are some ways to get started: Visit ccle.org.  Explore our posts.  Listen to recent webcasts.  Check out our FAQ. Visit webpages of our Classical Lutheran schools.  Join the conversation of our Homeschool group. Attend CCLE summer conferences annually. (Check ccle.org for our next conference.)   Read, read, read!   A Handbook on Classical Lutheran Education (available at www.ccle.org) The Classical Lutheran Education Journal (formerly The Classical Education Quarterly) (available at www.ccle.org) The CCLE Resource Guide (available at www.ccle.org) Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America (Studies in Philanthropy) by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. and Andrew Kern Simply Classical: A Beautiful Education for Any Child by Cheryl Swope Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning by Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers Lutheran Education: From Wittenberg to the Future by Dr. Thomas Korcok Visit a Classical Lutheran school.  Be prepared to be amazed! Contact CCLE for more information: webmaster@ccle.org.

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FW: "Why Classical Schools Just Might Save America"

Consider…

 

Feed: Blog
Posted on: Thursday, November 14, 2013 9:51 AM
Author: brianp
Subject: "Why Classical Schools Just Might Save America"

 

Owen Strachan recently made some interesting observations about the relationship between classical education and freedom.  And, while the original post seems to be experiencing some technical difficulties, Dr. Gene Edward Veith has reposted it for us on his own blog, Cranach.  Thanks to you both, gentlemen! By Owen Strachan, originally in The American Spectator: Category:  Blog Posts

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FW: Classical Christian Education and Public Witness

Consider…

 

Feed: The Imaginative Conservative
Posted on: Wednesday, September 04, 2013 11:06 PM
Author: Stephen Turley
Subject: Classical Christian Education and Public Witness

 

A Young Girl in the Classroom by Charles Sillem Lidderdale by Stephen Richard Turley The emergence of classical Christian education over the last few decades has thrown into relief the question of the relationship between public education and Christian witness. With ninety-percent of children in the U.S. attending public schools, the modern pulpit appears generally indifferent on the issue of private vs. public education for its parishioners; indeed, one might say pastors are generally supportive of public education. Perhaps the most common rationale for such support is that Christian students have the opportunity–indeed, the obligation–to be "salt and light", to be "in but not of' the world". But what does a faithful Christian witness in public life demand of us when it comes to schooling? It is essential to understand that the public-private school dichotomy which prevails in our social arrangements and discourse is extremely misleading. This is because all education is public: all education seeks to cultivate within students an appreciation of shared values that constitute the common good of a community. There is simply no such thing as an education that is entirely private. There is, however, education that is coercively funded and non-coercively funded; an education system that depends on the compulsory nature of the state versus one that depends on the voluntary tuition paid by willing participants. The real question, then, that emerges is not whether we are going to support public education, but whether we are going to support the kind of public promoted by state-financed education. In a word, the defining attribute of that public order perpetuated by state-funded education is secular. It is claimed that a secular society is one that neither favors not discriminates against any particular religion. Religion and politics simply do not mix in a modern secular society. While variant religions remain highly significant for people, this significance is maintained and expressed in the private sphere of life. By privatizing faith, it is suggested that all peoples are able to participate equally in economic, political, and sociological life without religious discrimination. And tax-funded schools, as an extension of this vision of the public, have carved out neutral space so as to allow people of all religions to come together and learn facts and data common to everyone. Now, this certainly sounds reasonable. The public promoted and perpetuated by the secular state neither favors nor discriminates against any particular religion. But what if it turns out that it was in fact the secular state that redefined religion this way? What if our understanding of faith and religion as that which belongs in one's private life rather than in the public square is itself the social invention of the secular state? What if religion has been redefined by the very institution that claims to "protect" it? In contrast to our modern religious sensibilities, classical Christianity understood the church as offering to the world an alternative public distinct from that offered by the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds. The church was a civilization, the city-state of the New Jerusalem. In fact, Augustine goes so far as to call the church a 'republic' in his City of God. Indeed, the term ekklesia, the Greek word for 'church', was not what we would call today a 'religious term' such as thiasos (worship of a particular deity); ekklesia was in fact a political term that designated the assembly of adult citizen males who had the ultimate decision making power in a city-state. Hence, the gospel was not a promise of personal and private salvation; the gospel was instead a declaration announcing that the entire cosmos has been incorporated into Christ's transformative life, death, and resurrection, which was expressed in shared life: mutuality, self-giving, and fellowship. As such, the 'truth of the gospel' was considered a thoroughly public truth. Truth was not merely personal persuasion; truth was in fact a revelation of reality which was socially recognized as absolute and unquestionable. By the third-century, educational institutions were considered integral to this public witness of the church. In cities such as Alexandria and Antioch, Christian education adopted the frames of reference of classical education which sought to cultivate within the student a sense of what classical scholars call 'cosmic piety': every person born into the world is born into a world of divine obligation. Classical education thus sought to instill within students the transcendent values embedded in the created order, namely, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful as they configured around Christ the Logos. It was believed that by embodying these cosmic values, students cultivated a virtuous soul. Classical Christian education was therefore a project by which the student was initiated into a public order that materialized or substantiated a cosmic piety, which in turn enabled the student to fulfill his or her divine purpose and thereby become truly human. This vision of education remained normative up to the end of the nineteenth-century. However, by the beginning of the twentieth-century, things had changed rather dramatically. A few centuries earlier, the Treaty of Westphalia in effect consigned the church to an organ of the state, which concentrated unprecedented power around local regents. As nation-states started to emerge in Europe, the burden on universities was to produce more civil servants than clergy, a process that Perry Glanzer has labeled the "nationalization of the universities". This transformation of the university into a servant of the nation-state led to a redefinition of knowledge that privileged science at the exclusion of the church. Consequently, there emerged a whole new definition of religion: religion was no longer a public expression of cosmic piety and social obligation. Instead, religion was simply something that one personally believed but could not know; it was that by which one cultivated a sense of private meaning and existential satisfaction, but religion had no public, that is objective, value at all. With the advent of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth-century and social democracies throughout Europe after World War I, there is in effect a massive recalibration of the totality of social and economic life around the state. And it is here that secularism plays a key role, for it is through secularization that the state is able to perpetuate and protect its monopolization over the public square. And the primary mechanism by which such monopolization is maintained is the redefinition of religion and the consequent marginalization of the church to the private sphere of life. The state effectively marginalizes the church (or any other competing vision of the public) by re-inventing our conception of faith and religion in accordance with secular norms: faith and religion are little more than instrumental means by which individuals find personal meaning and purpose for their lives. Hence, the role of education in a public defined by secular norms is to maintain the state's monopolization over the public square by perpetuating a dichotomy between the public and the private, science and religion, fact and faith, knowledge and belief; in short, state-funded education perpetuates and promotes the secularization of society. It is this public-private dichotomy that is profoundly detrimental to the witness of the church, for it in effect denies the church its distinctly public witness. The church's unique vision for a humane society is reduced to merely one of innumerable options for private recreation: yoga class on Saturday, youth group on Sunday. Because the church has been consigned to private belief rather than public knowledge, it has been stripped of the distinctly public frames of reference by which its truth claims are demonstrated to be more trustworthy than any other competing private belief. Consequentially, objective Christian commitments embodied in the shared life of the church collapse, and the integrity of the gospel is inexorably compromised. Hence, the practice of being "salt and light" is reduced to little more than anecdotes of personal persuasion. Moreover, by insisting upon this dichotomy between science and religion, modern education must by definition turn students away from the classical vision of cosmic piety, cutting them off from encountering the cosmic values of the True, Good, and Beautiful. Indeed, today, both in our schools and wider society, the True, Good, and Beautiful are now whatever one wants them to be. There is simply no divine obligation apart from that which each person chooses to impose upon his or herself. If Christians are to remain faithful to the biblical gospel, we must once again affirm the public witness of the church, particularly in the field of education. For such an affirmation not only awakens the soul to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, but in embodying the Truth, it exposes the state-financed educational system which denies Truth as what it is: a lie. We cannot teach our students that Truth is relative and expect our politicians to be honest; we can't claim that the Good has been replaced by situational ethics and expect Wall Street executives to ground their business decisions in anything other than profit, greed, and expediency; and we cannot relegate Beauty to personal preference and then feign shock when we encounter a urinal as part of an art exhibit. Christians will never expose this lie as long as they support and fund it. Classical Christian education offers nothing less than a parallel public, a revelation of Truth that in its social splendor awakens wonder and awe in teacher and student alike, as together they fellowship in Him who is the divine renewal of all things. Books on the topic and people related to this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore.  Stephen Richard Turley (Ph.D., Durham University) is a faculty member at Tall Oaks Classical School in New Castle, DE, where he teaches Theology, Greek, and Rhetoric, and Professor of Fine Arts at Eastern University. He lectures at universities, conferences, and churches throughout the U.S. and abroad. His research and writings have appeared in such journals as Christianity and Literature, Calvin Theological Journal, First Things, Touchstone, and The Chesterton Review. The post Classical Christian Education and Public Witness appeared first on The Imaginative Conservative.

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QBR and CCLE Review: Logic and Philosophy

 

This review will be posted both at Liturgy, Hymnody, and Pulpit Quarterly Book Review and the blog of The Consortium for Clasical and Lutheran Education. Naugle, David K. David S. Dockery, Series Editor. Philosophy: A Student's Guide (Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition). Wheaton: Crossway, 2012. 125 Pages. Paper. $11.99. www.crossway.org (N) Poythress, Vern Sheridan. Logic: A God-Centered Approach to the Foundation of Western Thought. Wheaton: Crossway, 2013. 733 Pages. Paper. $45.00. www.crossway.org (N) Ten years ago last month I attended my first Conference on Classical and Lutheran Education. I spent over six of the years following reading, preparing, and praying that I would be a Headmaster someday. That day came in April 2009. Here are two titles from Crossway to aid you in Classical Christian Education.   David Naugle (ThD, Dallas Theological Seminary; PhD, University of Texas Arlington) is distinguished university professor and chair of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University. He is the author of Worldview: The History of a Concept, Christianity Today's Book of the Year in Theology and Ethics, 2003, and of Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness. Philosophy pervades every sphere of life from the defense of the gospel to the formulation of Christian doctrine to the daily decisions we make. In this work, distinguished professor David Naugle gives us a firm understanding of the basic issues, thinkers, and sub-disciplines in the field of philosophy as well as an invitation to engage with the contemporary challenges therein. He discusses the importance of prolegomena (assumptions and methods) and the vocation of Christian philosophers. Naugle also outlines the differences between the Hebrew and Greek mindsets and provides biblical perspectives through an Augustinian approach. Above all, Naugle teaches us how to philosophize in light of God and the gospel. (Publisher's Website) I am not formally educated in secular or classical philosophy. I've studied theology, of course, and I have read philosophers. I am finding that my experience is relatively common, even in a day where "Could God microwave a burrito so hot He couldn't eat it?" passes for a deep philosophical thought. (By the way, there's faulty logic in it, just to start...) In David Naugle's student guide to Philosophy in Crossway's Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition series, the Incarnation of Christ is essential to any study of philosophy by Christians (55). That is a wonderful place to start! Theology has more in common with a Christian studying philosophy than one might think. We're dealing with questions of existence and purpose, of decisions and eternity, and the struggle of daily life. I immediately see connections to Vocation, Physics, Music, and Mathematics. If you have an interest in beginning a study of philosophy, Naugle's Philosophy: A Student's Guide is a great place to start. Switch to Logic and six hundred pages...   Vern Sheridan Poythress is professor of New Testament interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary, where he has taught for 33 years. He has six earned degrees, including a PhD from Harvard University and a ThD from the University of Stellenbosch. He is the author of numerous books on biblical interpretation, language, and science. For Christians looking to improve critical thinking skills, here is an accessible introduction to the study of logic as well as an in-depth treatment of the discipline from a professor with six academic degrees and over 30 years experience teaching. Questions for further reflection are included at the end of each chapter as well as helpful diagrams and charts for use in college and graduate-level classrooms. Vern Poythress has undertaken a radical recasting of the study of logic in this revolutionary work from a Christian worldview. (Publisher's Website) Of the books by Poythress that I've read and reviewed, this is by far my favorite. I have studied Logic. As Headmaster of MLGS, I've taught two different levels of logic after school hours to junior high students and adults. This text is far more comprehensive than what I've taught. The author continues his inter-book theme of the "God-Centered Approach."   This is a text with worldview assumptions favorable to and for Christians: The Ten Commandments  and worship of the one true God (97); Scripture, sin, grace, and the Gospel of Christ (83-84); creation and creativity (292). I appreciated the author's presentation of Multivalued Logic, logic beyond yes and no (Chapter 63, 474ff). Appendix F2 brings this review full circule: The Role of Logic in Philosophy (645).  Before I read the rest of Aristotle, I need to re-read Poythress. I am thankful for this volume. I commend Crossway for helping combat what was called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind in the previous century with these two releases and encourage them to publish more books I'll use as our school expands beyond the Grammar level to junor high and high school study of logic, philosophy, and rhetoric.   The Rev. Paul J Cain is Pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church, Sheridan, Wyoming, Headmaster of Martin Luther Grammar School, Yellowstone Circuit Visitor (LCMS Wyoming District), a member of the Board of Directors of The Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education, Wyoming District Worship Chairman, and Editor of QBR.

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Homeschool Resources on www.cph.org

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FW: Not My Boy, Not My School

Beane on the Handbook…

 

Feed: Father Hollywood
Posted on: Monday, July 29, 2013 5:28 PM
Author: Rev. Larry Beane
Subject: Not My Boy, Not My School

 

Although he makes no reference to this song in the article, I can't help but think of Rev. Dr. Steven Hein's "The Intent and Effect of American Progressive Education" in A Handbook for Classical Lutheran Education. His essay opens: Very few of us today are aware of the history of education in America.  It is commonly thought that whatever innovations have come over the centuries and decades, they have been conceived and implemented with the goal of improving pedagogy to enable the learner to learn more and and to learn more efficiently.... with the goal of improving education for all our children - that is, to make our children better educated.  Unfortunately, this is not, and has never been, the case with compulsory, government-administered progressive American education whose beginnings can be traced to the middle 1800s in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia." And it continues in this provocative and well-documented fashion, with a devastating look at how America went from being almost 100% literate to being pitiful in the area of reading - and this was not a failure, but rather a success, of the architects of progressive education. Buy this book!

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FW: Rehabilitating the Liberal Arts

Consider…

 

Feed: The Imaginative Conservative
Posted on: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 11:02 PM
Author: Louis Markos
Subject: Rehabilitating the Liberal Arts

 

by Louis Markos A review of Bradley G. Green's The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Crossway Books, 2011) and Houston Baptist Univeristy's new Core Curriculum I am in my 22nd year as an English professor at Houston Baptist University, and I have never been so excited! In 2011, we unveiled our new Liberal Arts Core: a carefully constructed and coordinated curriculum that includes classes in literature and foreign language, Christian history and theology, Western and American history, philosophy and logic, government and economics, art and music, and math and science. It is not a loose and fashionable cafeteria plan, where students choose whatever strikes their fancy, but a true classical-Christian core, in which students are invited into the Great Judeo-Christian/Greco-Roman Conversation that begins with the Bible and Homer and continues into the twenty-first century. It is not narrowly utilitarian in focus, seeking only to train its charges for a specific skill or career, but broadly liberal, seeking to free the mind from the idols of the marketplace and equip it for critical thinking and creative contemplation. It is conveyed not through textbooks, which seek to bend the past to fit our own modern prejudices and presuppositions, but the actual Books themselves, treated as repositories of the wisdom of the past and vehicles for reaching at transcendent, cross-cultural truths. It is not driven by the social sciences, with their reductive and mechanistic view of man as a product of social-political-economic forces, but by the humanities, with their ennobled yet realistic view of man as a creature made in God's image but fallen and in a state of rebellion. It is not postmodern and multicultural, offering a relativistic view of knowledge that doubts not only the existence of Truth but our ability to know or communicate it, but traditional and holistic, seeking after a unified vision of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Most of all it is unapologetic in its belief that Great Books and Ideas do exist and that a direct wrestling with such Books and Ideas offers one of the best training grounds for shaping virtuous, morally self-regulating citizens who love God and their neighbor. In short, it is cutting edge…for the fourteenth century! Imagine, then, my delight when I read Bradley G. Green's The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Crossway, 2010) and found in its pages a powerful Christian-humanist vision of education that complements in the theoretical realm what my university is doing in the practical. No wonder the book features an endorsement from Robert Sloan, the President of Houston Baptist University. The Way out of the Dark Ages Green, associate professor of Christian studies at Union University and co-founder of a Christian liberal arts school appropriately named Augustine School, is a man on a mission. His well-researched and highly-readable book is not content merely to suggest that Christianity and the intellectual life are compatible. Green makes it clear that "the Christian vision of God, man, and the world provides the necessary precondition of the recovery of any meaningful intellectual life." Sever the mind from the gospel, and you eventually end up with the situation that reigns on most college campuses today: a values-free zone with no moral standards to determine that which is good, no aesthetic touchstones to determine that which is beautiful, and no accepted canon—biblical or otherwise—to determine that which is true. Or, as Green so boldly and succinctly expresses it: "As the modern world has jettisoned its Christian intellectual inheritance, there has been a corresponding confusion about the value of the mind, even of the possibility of knowledge at all, whether of God or of the created order." Green begins his book with a simple statement of historical fact that has been overlooked, or, to be more accurate, obscured, by the Academy: "wherever the gospel takes hold of a culture, you inevitably see academies, schools, and institutions of learning develop. They develop not only to teach people how to read and understand the Bible, as important and central as that is. But wherever the gospel goes, it seems to generate intellectual deliberation and inquiry." I constantly have to remind my students—and myself, since I too am a product of two-and-a-half centuries of Enlightenment propaganda—that the Catholic Church did not usher in the Dark Ages; quite to the contrary, it was the Church that ushered Europe out of the Dark Ages. It was the Church as well that invented the university and laid the theological, philosophical, and aesthetic groundwork for the arts and sciences. True, it was Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (and their respective disciples and schools) who gave birth to the humanistic ideal of knowledge pursued for its own sake; but it was the Church that not only spread that ideal to a wider audience and institutionalized it, but gave it a firm foundation that it lacked in ancient Greece. Apart from the central Christian beliefs that we were created in the image of a holy, transcendent God who is at once the origin and standard of goodness, truth, and beauty, that history is meaningful and is going somewhere, that though we are fallen God intervened within human history to redeem our hearts, souls, and minds, and that God as Logos guarantees the meaningfulness of language, the intellectual life cannot thrive or even, in the long run, be sustained. Green makes it the burden of his book to explain why this is the case. Chronological Snobbery Perhaps the most shocking aspect of HBU's new Liberal Arts Core is that it requires all students to take four semesters of Western and American history. I call this shocking because, of all the humanistic disciplines, history has perhaps suffered the most. What little "history" our primary, secondary, and college-aged students receive today is more often than not a disguised form of anthropology (studying the rites and rituals of native American Indians), sociology (exploring how political and economic networks of power determine the way people think and behave), or soft Marxism (exposing how minorities and the lower classes have been consistently oppressed by aristocrats, clerics, and the bourgeoisie). Though it is a good thing for students, especially Christian students, to be aware of the injustices in our world and to be encouraged to use their God-given gifts to help alleviate some of those injustices, such "consciousness raising" does little to train students in history. In fact, if truth be told, it generally dismisses, if not altogether obliterates, history as history. Talk to anyone who has been educated since the 1960's, and you will find that they have very little sense of the shape of history. They may recognize such names as Pericles or Caesar or Charlemagne or Elizabeth, but they lack the ability to place those names into a historical narrative. The rise and fall of kingdoms—and the virtuous and vicious decisions of the great men and women who provoked their rise and fall—has far less resonance in the modern mind than today's stock market figures, or yesterday's political scandal, or the box office records of the latest action film. Mesmerized by a simplistic, evolutionary view of intellectual, aesthetic, and moral progress, we take for granted that we are in the right and they (the unenlightened people of the past) were wrong. Such a view of our tradition and our forebears breeds arrogance—C. S. Lewis called it "chronological snobbery"—and cuts us off from all that we might learn from a full engagement with the past. There was a time when our colleges and universities stemmed such arrogance by immersing their students in the Great Books and Ideas of the Western Intellectual Tradition, but that time is long gone. "While the academy used to be a stronghold of love for the past—relishing old books, old languages, old truths—the contemporary academy," Green laments, "seems to have lost its nerve in regard to the importance of the past and often seems little concerned with passing on an intellectual tradition." Why? The Habit of Remembering Though I intimated above that the great divide is the 1960's, that decade only reaped the pedagogical harvest of the secular humanist field sown during the Enlightenment. When God was removed from the public square in general and the academy in particular—or replaced by a deistic, watchmaker God who is uninvolved in history—the educated elite slowly replaced reverence and gratitude for the past with utopian, progressivist visions for the future. In the absence of a Creator God whose sovereign plans are worked out, in part, through historical events and human agents, the past was eventually reduced to, at best, a curiosity shop for antiquarians and, at worst, a burden to be cast off by those seeking intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic liberation. When the university came to view history, not as an authoritative teacher to turn to for insight and guidance, but as a false path to turn from on the evolutionary road to enlightenment, it lost its faith in the value of history, and, by extension, the value of the liberal arts as the prime training ground for the life of the mind. While Green, backed by the weight of Augustine and the medieval tradition, asserts that "any truly Christian and liberal education will be one in which students are immersed in the central texts of the past—the literature, history, philosophy, and theology of millennia," the majority of American universities, both secular and religious, have traded in their liberal arts core for utilitarian programs that eschew the "central texts of the past" in favor of skill-based classes marked by contemporary relevance. Historian Thomas Cahill has famously argued that it was a group of isolated Irish monks who helped "save" civilization by preserving the Greek and Roman classics from the barbarian invasions of the Dark Ages. In a similar way, Green calls on Christians to preserve—and, hopefully, revive—the value and centrality of the liberal arts: not though the medium of illuminated manuscripts but by building "pockets of sanity" where the Tradition is actively and creatively remembered. "In an age that does not place a high premium on the past (likely a result of unbelief), Christians must see themselves as countercultural in their emphasis on memory and must be particularly diligent to cultivate and practice the habit of remembering. Remembering is—ultimately—a virtue. And given that our culture discourages this particular virtue, Christians must find ways of intentionally cultivating this practice." Although the Church should ever be the primary "pocket" for keeping alive the memory of "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3), when it comes to that wider historical memory that takes in "the literature, history, philosophy, and theology of millennia," it is the Christian universities—and, increasingly, classical-Christian academies like Green's Augustine school—that are best poised to preserve and promote the remembrance of things past. The Search for Meaning A base-level commitment to memory is indeed essential if Christian universities are to reclaim and rehabilitative the life of the mind—but it is not enough. Along with acknowledging God's sovereignty over creation and history, we must accept and teach that history is going somewhere: that it not only has an ultimate origin (Greek: arche) but a purposeful end (telos). Though modern utopianism, progressivism, and scientism all look to the future, the vision that underlies them is not, at least in the biblical sense, teleological or eschatological. They put their faith in the future that they long to build, but they do not trust that that future has been envisioned by the God of history and hardwired into us by our Creator. "Instead of seeing motion as headed somewhere," Green explains, "modern thinkers came to see motion as simply motion, with no particular goal or end in sight." Or, to put it another way: history can (and should) be manipulated by advances in technology, but that does not mean it is inherently meaningful or is moving toward a mythical appointment with destiny. According to Green, "the notion that we are all pilgrims on a journey to the city of God was the default mode of thinking, the cultural consensus of the Christian West." It was simply understood that we, both as a species and as individual human beings, were endowed (that is, gifted) with purpose by our Creator and that, as such, one of the key goals of our lives, our studies, and our careers was to discover and fulfill that purpose. At the highest level, that purpose was to seek after the beatific vision, to behold God, not through a glass, darkly, but face to face. Such was the supreme goal of every individual made in the image of God, a goal whose realization was aided, rather than distracted, by the cultivation of the liberal arts. In the heyday of the Christian university, "the liberal arts were not primarily skills or techniques that could be pressed into immediate service in the marketplace or used to advance oneself quickly in the world of commerce. The liberal arts were intentionally useless. They were not first and foremost utilitarian." To the contrary, their benefits were mostly internal: shaping and preparing soul and mind for intrinsic rewards in this life and the next. The liberal arts, writes Green, "were meant to form a certain type of person—wise, virtuous, and eloquent. Even in the temporal realm this person reflected upon—and was marked by attention to—truth, goodness, and beauty.  But at the very same time, this person was being prepared for his or her ultimate destiny—the vision and contemplation of God." Such was the high goal of the student of the liberal arts. Alas, once this telos, this purposeful end of achieving the beatific vision was abandoned by the public square, "then lost with it were the reasons for doing things that have meaning only in relationship to that larger telos"—things like studying the past through a coordinated, classical-Christian liberal arts core. With Our Understanding Purified At this point, some of my fellow believers may be afraid that either I or Green is advocating an Enlightenment faith in the primacy of reason and the essential goodness of man. Please let me be clear: neither I nor Green nor Houston Baptist University denies the radical nature of the Fall. All aspects of our being—physical, emotional, volitional, and rational—were subjected to the devastating impact of man's first disobedience. Indeed, one of the key reasons for Green's argument that "the Christian vision of God, man, and the world provides the necessary precondition of the recovery of any meaningful intellectual life" is that the gospel alone has the power to so redeem the will and reorient the mind as to set it back on a God-ward, which is to say Truth-ward, trajectory. As he does throughout his book, Green turns first to Augustine for guidance on how faith informs and directs understanding. In his survey of Augustinian insights, he quotes this trenchant sentence from On Christian Doctrine (which work undergirds "Writing for Wisdom," HBU's radically traditional reworking of freshman composition): "unless we walk by faith, we shall never be able to reach the sight which does not pass away but endures, when with our understanding purified we cleave to Truth." Augustine does not here deny the possibility of pre-Christian writers like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Virgil touching on real, if limited truths about the nature of God, man, and the universe; rather, he makes plain that the final purpose (telos) of study, to prepare the mind for the beatific vision, cannot be accomplished apart from what Paul refers to as the "renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2)—and that renewing cannot be accomplished apart from the Cross. In order to tease out more fully the teachings of Augustine, Green surveys briefly the writings of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, focusing in particular on how they "emphasize the moral state of the knower." Study, Green asserts, is not a morally neutral enterprise: "knowledge is difficult, if not impossible, for the person whose will is misdirected, or for the person who is not led by Christ, who is the truth." There is a deep and inextricable link between the love of God and the love of the Good, True, and Beautiful: the one cannot exist without the other. One of the current banes of education is the steep rise in incidences of plagiarism among students of all ages. Though it is right and proper for universities to implement strict penalties for plagiarism, such utilitarian solutions are ultimately powerless to change the hearts, minds, and wills of students. Plagiarism will end only when students come to see and understand and feel the intensely moral business which they are about. In Writing for Wisdom, which is required of all HBU freshmen, we hope to drive home this point by introducing students to the educational principles laid down in Augustine's On Christian Doctrine. Among the many challenges Green issues to Christian educators, this one is, I believe, the most essential: "Christians need to ask how we might construe the intellectual life in ways that are redemptive, holistic, and enduring. The life of the mind, the act of knowing, is not a morally or spiritually neutral endeavor. To truly think God's thought after him, indeed to truly think in terms of a coherent view of the whole, we must think in a way consonant with the reality that this is God's world as understood on God's terms. Christians need not be embarrassed or timid about speaking about the intellectual life in explicitly Christian terms and categories." And, by extension, we need not be embarrassed to speak of professors as stewards of the Tradition and students as disciples whose study of the liberal arts will change not only their thinking but their actions, decisions, and interactions with God and neighbor. The Word Made Flesh Yes, the students who attend our schools are in desperate need of a wake-up call and a reality check, but they won't get it until we—the administrators who run the schools and the faculty who teach the classes—come to see and understand and feel that what we are about is serious business. Too many of us have bought in, perhaps unconsciously, to the postmodern belief that truth is elusive and cannot be contained in a canon of books or a set of doctrinal statements or a grand, overarching story (or metanarrative) that explains why we and our world are in the state that we are. Green deftly exposes the assumption that underlies this postmodern skepticism: "The contemporary claim (heard, if in a softer form, from some Christian thinkers) that we cannot possess any sort of metanarrative explaining and giving purpose to all of human life is at its heart a rejection of the notion that God has the ability to speak, and humans have the capacity to hear and understand such speech." The Enlightenment, in its goal of refounding all knowledge on rational principles (rather than revelation) and the collection of facts (rather than the journey toward truth), did far more than eject God from the public square: it stilled the divine Voice. Green argues, along with a number of other critics, that postmodernism (particularly deconstruction), far from rejecting the tenets of the Enlightenment, marks an extension of modernism into the linguistic realm. Once God's Voice was silenced, it was only a matter of time before words (signifiers) became unglued from any type of final transcendent meaning (signifieds). According to Derrida and his deconstructive heirs, the words we use cannot be traced back to any fixed point of reference that is not itself part of our shadowy, relativistic world of signifiers. Or, to put it another way, our words (and the creeds and books and poems that are built upon them) exist in isolation from any ultimate origin (arche) or purposeful end (telos). What this linguistic entropy has meant in the real world of the classroom is that even when the liberal arts are taught, postmodern skepticism over the meaningfulness of language has prevented students from encountering in the Great Books of the Western Intellectual Tradition any absolute form of Goodness, Truth, or Beauty. As a result, their minds are not illuminated, their souls are not convicted, and their wills are not tempered. But this need not be the case, at least in Christian schools that believe John's testimony that through the Incarnation of Christ, "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Genesis tells us that God spoke the world into being, and John tells us that apart from the Word (or Logos) nothing was made (John 1:3). Genesis tells us further that we were made in the image of God, and the entire weight of scripture loudly proclaims that the God who made us is a God who speaks, who communicates.  Words have meaning not only because God gives them meaning but because God himself is Meaning. And that Meaning has entered physically into our world. The Word made Flesh, in addition to giving history its middle point, baptized words (and images) as potential bearers of divine Presence. Thus it is that Green can extend his simple but profound thesis even into the daunting realm of postmodern linguistics: "Only the Christian vision of God, man, and the world can explain why words matter. The Christian vision is the only one that can account for the meaningfulness of words." Green is right, of course, and because he is right, the hope remains that we in the twenty-first century can learn, really learn, from the great writers and thinkers of the past. Modernism and postmodernism would imprison our students (and us) in a narrow contemporary box of ideas and images; the classical liberal arts, when energized by a twin belief in the Word made Flesh and the Imago Dei, can free them from that box and set them off on a great voyage of discovery. The Call In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis introduces us to a chivalrous talking mouse named Reepicheep who joins the crew of the good ship Dawn Treader in hopes that he will encounter a series of small adventures that will prepare him for the great adventure that is the unshakeable goal of his life: to reach Aslan's country (heaven). At one point in the voyage (Chapter XII), the ship sails into an area of darkness that frightens the crew and almost convinces them to turn back. Disgusted by their cowardice, Reepicheep scolds his noble companions for letting a childish fear of the dark prevent them from exploring this strange phenomenon. The captain asks Reepicheep what possible use would be gained by sailing further into the darkness, to which the fearless mouse replies: "Use, captain?  If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all.  So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventures. And here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honours." Let it not be said that our Christian universities steered away from the honor and adventure that a full engagement with the liberal arts promises because we were blinded by an overly pragmatic (and timid) view of that which is useful. Let us instead do our best to prepare our students for the true goal for which they (and we) were made: to look on Aslan face to face. Books mentioned in this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore. Essays by Dr. Markos may be found here. Louis Markos, Professor in English & Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University, holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities; he also teaches the freshman classical-Christian curriculum for HBU's Honors College. He is author of Restoring Beauty: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C. S. Lewis, Apologetics for the 21st Century, and From Achilles to Christ. His latest book is On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis. This essay appeared in St. Austin Review and appears here by permission (with small revisions). The post Rehabilitating the Liberal Arts appeared first on The Imaginative Conservative.

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