Education is Fundamentally Religious

The following is an excerpt from The Case for Classical Christian Education by Douglas Wilson, pages 21 and 22.

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The NEA knows what it wants and is willing to dedicate its resources to get it. Sad to say, on the other hand, most Christian parents do not know what they want and are not willing to sacrifice anything. Many within the system still have a biblical view of morality, and so they want to work against this sinful agenda and try to restore "traditional" morality to American schools.

On what moral basis shall the teacher who wholly suppresses all appeal to religion rest that authority which he must exercise in the classroom? He will find it necessary to say to the pupil, "Be diligent. Be obedient. Do not lie." This must be done so the student may acquire his secular knowledge. But on who's authority? By what standard?*

Education is fundamentally religious. Consequently, there is no question about whether a morality will be imposed in that education, but rather which morality will be imposed. Christians and assorted traditionalists who want a secular school system to instill anything other than secular ethics are wanting something that has never happened and can never happen.

Because all truths converge towards God, the teacher who cannot name God must have fragmented teaching. He can only construct a truncated figure. In history, ethics, philosophy, and jurisprudence, religious facts and propositions are absolutely inseparable from the subject at hand. The necessary discipline of a schoolroom and secular fidelity of teaching require religion.*

If they converge toward the Christian God, then He will be acknowledged, and His Word will be honored. If all "truths" converge on the Sinai of another God, then we will see his law/word imposed. And that "law" will in our day amount to some variation of catering to the powers that be.

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* These two quotes are from R.L. Dabney, On Secular Education (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1989) pg 19,24

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