Christian Education and Culture

Because the Christian religion stresses the importance of reason, not simply will and emotion, it has a stake in the arena of culture generally and in the realm of education specifically.

For Christianity exalts God as Lord of the minds of men, and under God seeks the spiritual and intelligible integration of all of life’s experiences.

Christianity And Reason

The greatness of the Hebrew-Christian religion rests partly on its insistence that the Living God is rational and moral, and that the Logos is identical with absolute deity; its insistence that the created universe is expressive of reason and responsive to reason; that the dignity of man above the animals consists in participation in the Divine image, enabling man to think God’s thoughts after him and to walk in his ways; that the Holy Spirit uses truth as a means to illumine and to convict man the sinner; and that God’s special revelation addressed to sinners and climaxed historically at Mount Calvary, also includes concepts and phrases identified as the Word of God written;—all this partially mirrors the glory of biblical religion. Doubtless some religions degrade reason, but Christianity supports the intellectual integration of life and experience.

The importance of reason is therefore an inescapable, enduring Christian emphasis. Only in times of reaction or of recrudescence has Christian theology neglected it. Ever since the Scottish philosopher Hume turned modern intellectual currents into a skeptical channel, and the German philosopher Kant proposed his additionally complicating epistemological remedy, the doubt over human reason’s adequacy to comprehend the spiritual world has vexed the headwaters of Protestant theology like a phantom. For almost two centuries, Western philosophy has increasingly dabbled in non-rational experience, finally yielding to Kierkegaard, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, and Dewey. This speculative irrationalism largely scorned Kant’s a priori foundation of knowledge and denied the “ontological significance of reason,” to borrow philosophical language. In other words, modern philosophy deserted the historic Christian belief that reason pervades the world of reality; it denied rational relationships between a rational Creator, man, and the universe. By the turn of the century, this bias had seeped to the intellectual classes.

After World War I, non-rationality in human experience overpowered the general social consciousness. This revolt of speculative philosophy against reason gained quick fortification from certain schools of theology—from the “relational predicament” into which Schleiermacher and Ritschl, and Protestant liberalism quite generally, betrayed the theology of revelation by excluding any objective metaphysical knowledge of God. In his attempt to rescue theology from such abuse, Karl Barth made only limited progress. The Harvard scholar, Crane Brinton, in his history of Western thought, Ideas and Men, shows concern over anti-intellectualism as “one of the characteristic manifestations of the spirit of our age.” Gordon H. Clark’s survey of the history of Western philosophy, Thales to Dewey, devotes 65 pages, one-eighth of the volume, to “Contemporary Irrationalism,” his term for the predominant mood of European and Anglo-Saxon post-Hegelianism.

Because of this drift in modern thought and because of the nature of the Christian religion, evangelical theologians today have good cause to resist the growing revolt against reason. Christianity must repudiate rationalism that exalts the authority of human speculation and conceals an Infinite Mind that corrects the limited knowledge of creatures. The believing Church has always been swift to repudiate pantheism, which regards the human mind as a fragment of the Divine Mind. In this century it has resisted neo-Hegelian personalism as well, which, while it distinguishes the Infinite Self from finite selves, nonetheless detaches man from any necessary dependence upon special Divine revelation for reliable knowledge of God. In one important respect, however, the post-Hegelian reaction from rationalism to anti-intellectualism can learn even from Hegel. While the great German idealist perversely misrepresented Christianity on many points, he was formally nearer the truth than many of his modern critics by insisting that man is divinely intended not only to love God but to know him. Hegel’s The Philosophy of History has scorching words for the doctrine that God is to be obeyed rather than known. This is what he says:

In direct contravention of what is commanded in holy Scripture as the highest duty—that we should not merely love, but know God—the prevalent dogma involves the denial of what is there said; viz., that it is the Spirit (der Geist) that leads into Truth, knows all things, penetrates even into the deep things of the Godhead. While the Divine Being is thus placed beyond our knowledge, and outside the limit of all human things, we have the convenient license of wandering as far as we list, in the direction of our own fancies. We are freed from the obligation to refer our knowledge to the Divine and True. On the other hand, the vanity and egotism which characterize it find, in this false position, ample justification; and the pious modesty which puts far from it the knowledge of God can well estimate how much furtherance thereby accrues to its own wayward and vain strivings. I have been unwilling to leave out of sight the connection between our thesis—that Reason governs and has governed the World—and the question of the possibility of a knowledge of God, chiefly that I might not lose the opportunity of mentioning the imputation against Philosophy of being shy of noticing religious truths, or of having occasion to be so; in which is insinuated the suspicion that it has anything but a clear conscience in the presence of these truths. So far from this being the case, the fact is, that in recent times Philosophy has been obliged to defend the domain of religion against the attacks of several theological systems. In the Christian religion God has revealed Himself—that is, he has given us to understand what He is; so that He is no longer a concealed or secret existence. And this possibility of knowing Him, thus afforded us, renders such knowledge a duty. God wishes no narrow-hearted souls or empty heads for his children; but those whose spirit is of itself indeed poor, but rich in the knowledge of Him; and who regard this knowledge of God as the only valuable possession (The Philosophy of History, translated from the German by J. Sibree. New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1900, pp. 14 f.).

Some may misconstrue this use of Hegel as a revival of nineteenth century liberalism superimposed on evangelical apologetics. They recognize his grossly antibiblical teaching that our spirits are but parts of the Absolute coming to consciousness in our own contemplation. But those who summarily dismiss all of Hegel on this account will cut themselves off from Aquinas and Augustine, from Luther and Calvin, indeed from the best theological heritage of Christianity as well. For the Great Tradition insists that a rational, moral Spirit governs creation and has fashioned man for obedience in knowledge; that ultimately truth is one, and that philosophy and theology dare not be confined to separate compartments of the human mind; and that all life, history, and culture are measured by the Infinite God, find their meaning only in relation to him, and derive their ennoblement only through the resources resident in him.

Christianity seeks to conform human reason and all its achievements to Jesus Christ the Creator, Redeemer and Judge. For this reason it has a permanent interest in and validity for education and culture. It summons all of personal and social life to Christ’s lordship.

Today’s investment in the spirit and service of secularism means staggering depreciation of human well-being and happiness with each passing year. Deflection of culture and civilization from Christian enthusiasm and from the sense of Christian obligation conceals and virtually nullifies the social claim of Christ and his Kingdom in our day. Because it is unaware of Christ’s primacy, the world of learning and science follows an unpredictable course in relation to duty and justice and love. Its esprit de corps today is assuredly not the Spirit of the Living God. Neither the higher nor lower levels of education must be allowed to fall unprotested to secular leaders and interpreters of life.

Penetrating Secular Options

In the United States, Christians have usually tried to keep some hold on higher education and have largely ignored primary and secondary education, although this situation now shows some change. In a secular climate, Christian ideals and virtues do not flourish; rather, they are in a defensive fight for sheer survival. To neglect pressing the claim of Christ upon the secular community brings swift and costly reprisal for such disregard: the non-Christian ideals and concepts of the world will soon infect the members of our churches. Areas of “supposed truth” will be Christless. Nature without creation, providence, and miracle; history without prophecy and fulfillment, without the centrality of the Cross; man without conscience, soul, and redemption; life without present salvation and future immortality: this is the penalty and price of Christian neglect.

If, however, Christianity relates itself properly to the entire range of thought and action, if it aggressively penetrates secular alternatives as a revealed world-life view, Christianity will further true learning and fullness of life. Christ then becomes the source and goal of the noblest and broadest culture.

If ultimate reality is not irrational and ineffable, but is Logos; if ultimate reality is not impersonal, but is the Lord; if ultimate reality is not indifferent, but is Love; if it is in Christ Jesus that “all things consist,” if all things are “of him, and through him, and unto him,” if the Cross is the central idea to which creation relates, if the Lamb of God was “slain from the foundation of the world,” if Jesus Christ is indeed “the way, the truth and the life,” if the Holy Spirit is to “guide us into all truth,” if there is “no other name given among men whereby we must be saved,” if the Church of Jesus Christ is “the pillar and ground of truth,” then it is dangerous to spawn a civilization that seeks truth without Christ. To apply genius and power for extending the orbit of worldly knowledge without reference to its axis of revelation in the Son of God is vain. To shut out the illumination of God’s disclosure of himself in Christ, not simply from the world of religion, but also of philosophy, of science, of literature and art, is blindness indeed. Truth in every realm is a commentary on the reality of life brought from darkness to light by the Creator-Redeemer God; it reflects the wise and holy Lord of the universe in relationship to his creatures; and it refracts the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ who ever remains the living head of the Church.

Either Christianity interprets the culture of the world or that culture yields to the compulsion of false gods. Dare we lament the tragic deterioration of a sense of accountability to the Christian revelation in literature and art, the theater and the stage, law and medicine, philosophy and science, as well as in theology itself? Have we not neglected compelling elaboration of the relevant principles by which Christianity interprets these movements of civilization and thought? If moral earnestness and devotion to truth are to saturate and characterize our modern world, then science and scholarship must unite with spirituality and service to God. In a word, we must live, move, and have our modern being in both Christianity and culture at one and the same time, in one and the same life breath. Christ alone is able to blend and bind culture and conscience, civilization and Christianity, society and spirit. He is the head of the corner, the chief cornerstone, the one immovable foundation. He is the whole Truth; whatever ignores him, therefore, is part-truth and part-lie, or actually, not the truth at all.

Convinced of the reality of Christ’s redemption for and in life, evangelical forces must challenge and storm the high places of culture and learning. If through indifference and carelessness of Christ’s followers, skepticism, agnosticism and rationalism overtake the realms of learning, the Christian Church can claim no excuse for this default. Guilt and shame are the only recompense for deposing the name of Christ from the totality of learning. Christ Jesus is the center of nature, history, man, and all the spheres of study. The Church silent in this message is no longer the Church; she tears the crown of glory from her Redeemer’s brow, and substitutes another crown of thorns. To measure the wisdom of this world demands intellectual eminence and precision. At the same time, the vitality of spiritual humility must diffuse the reverence and love and power of God into the vast arena of modern thought and action. Evangelical forces must covet the forefront of intellectual progress for the recognition and service of Jesus Christ.

This Christian challenge to bring culture under the superintendence of God holds promise of staggering benefits to all mankind among the nations of our world.

Education, together with evangelism is the fulcrum in the tottering imbalances of modern society. To secure personal recognition of Jesus Christ as Saviour and God in private life, and beyond this to engage in the task of social rescue and redemption, is the prescribed task of evangelism. Only education, however, that interprets Divine revelation in its bearing upon human personality and social energy in relation to God and neighbor can disclose the eternal as well as far-reaching temporal import of every thought, word and deed. Education bears the responsibility for study, investigation, research and teaching in all the sciences.

The Christian University

A crucial key for unlocking and releasing this Christian contribution to social order is the Christian university, or at least a graduate school of advanced Christian studies. To confront conflicting social forces with a view to intelligibly integrating man’s total experiences requires knowledge of modern culture’s weaknesses. The Christian academic world must exhibit these alongside the ennobling features of redemptive revelation, and must demonstrate and inspire confidence and dedication in developing Christian solutions. As a cultural force, education moves downward from above no less than upward from below. The prevailing standards and quality of culture are fixed primarily at the professional level. Wherever spiritual forces have neglected higher education, no matter how superior numerically they may have been, they have almost invariably exerted less influence than smaller groups with a vision and program in the world of thought. What remarkable social forces would be loosed in our century if devout faculties, cognizant that the Logos, the source and fountain of all truth, is none other than Jesus Christ the Word made flesh for our salvation, piloted the University of Moscow, the University of Berlin, the Sorbonne, Cambridge and Oxford, Harvard and Columbia, Chicago and California, to mention but a few. If the influence of a great Christian university could permeate educational enterprise throughout the world, if every realm of learning could face with sobriety the supremacy of Jesus Christ, who can predict what great blessing even one nation—may it yet be America—could bring to the world, and to the cause of truth.

When the Church invites multitudes into the abundant life, when it identifies its highest academic concerns with the training of the ministry, but in both pulpit and pew evades and defers major encounters and resolution in the world of speculation, the Church only postpones the inevitable agony of intellectual conflict within its own ranks. In the schools, colleges and universities which it creates and inspires, the Church must find exhibition of a comprehensive Christian world-life view to launch beyond broken fragments of sermonic interpretation to the complete intellectual integration of life and experience. The Church with its message must permeate the whole of life.

The first area where Christians must make headway is in the sphere of learning. The Christian integration of all thought and life is still the great and transcendent priority for coordinated social effort; without it, Christian youth remains poorly equipped for the onslaughts of unbelief. That modern Western culture in the nineteenth century took its leadership from speculative idealism, and in the twentieth century from the naturalism of Charles Darwin, John Dewey and the successors of Karl Marx, emphasizes the far greater threat to the Christian Church of academic sterility than of rationalism in the presence of alien philosophies. Academic cretinism augurs not only a pietistic structure of anti-intellectualism but a stunted expression of the broader implications of revealed religion. “Before the builder there must be the plan; but before the plan there must be the vision.” How clear is our vision of the need for an academically respectable and effective impact on world culture? This vision is the key to either success or failure in planning and building the unshakable foundation of Jesus Christ into the tottering shells of secular learning.

END

An address by Editor Carl F. H. Henry given this year at Goshen College, Indiana, in conjunction with a faculty discussion on the relationship of Christianity to the liberal arts.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.