Faster Unto Thee

Taking Flak for Christian Schooling

Our plan for the last 5 years was to homeschool our daughter, but due to circumstances beyond our control, we have had to abandon that plan. Abandoning the plan has been painful to say the least. We had met many homeschooling families and overall were deeply impressed with the academic progress, social well-being, and spiritual foundation these children had in comparison to the average child from a Christian home who was in public school.

In place of homeschooling we have chosen to send our daughter to a Christian school. Our decision came after much prayer and researching the schooling options available to us. Now after her first week at school we must say thanks to God, for He seems to have led us to a good school and our daughter loves it and seems to have done well so far. While entrusting her to others for hours a day has been difficult and not without a great deal of second-guessing, we do feel that we are in God's will.

Much to our surprise, some Christians have not affirmed our decision. In particular, we have had several Christian people (yes, Christians!) respond to our choice with skepticism and even subtle hostility. From several of these folks I get the impression that they feel judged somehow, thinking that our choice on where to send our daughter to school is somehow a commentary on what they chose for their child or children. For those people, I want to say that our choice has nothing to do with you, but with us and a commitment to seek God's will on this matter. Others quietly ripple with this odd hostility to anything but public school, as though we are subversive to the government. And this is a government that they constantly criticize! To those I want to say that my first loyalty is to God and His Word. Needless to say, it has been a weird week. 

So why have we chosen a Christian school instead of sending our child to public school? Here is my thinking so far.

1. God's will. The goal of life is to bring glory to Him, and one way of doing that is to bring all areas of life under God's direction. That includes the schooling for our children. It seems ridiculous to me to simply default to public school when other options are available. Too many families never seriously consider sending their children to a Christian school or homeschooling them. They simply default to public school. After wrestling with the choice in prayer over a significant period of time, my wife and I felt that it was God's will that we send our daughter to a Christian school.

2.Influence. The Bible makes it clear that training in light of God's Word as a child is crucial to their faithfulness to God as an adult: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he shall not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). Contrast a public school and a Christian school in your mind. In a public school, some teachers are Christians but are not allowed to speak openly of their faith nor are they allowed to express an overtly biblical viewpoint in their teaching, nor are they allowed to pray with their students, directly promote a right relationship between God and their students, etc. Beyond these restraints on the Christian teachers, there are the non-Christian teachers who are hostile to the Christian faith, bristling with secularism and liberal ideas, and more, and have a clear agenda of shaping your child with their worldview. In contrast, in a Christian school, all the teachers must profess the Christian faith, must incorporate biblical thinking into all the subjects taught, and typically teach in a Christian school (usually for far less money than they would make as public school teachers) out of sense of mission for God. Their deep concern is the formation of children for the glory of God. This father wants his child to be influenced by such people, especially in her formative years.

I am unaware of any Scripture which teaches that influence from non-Christians is a good thing or that being among them will help a child "toughen up." In fact, it teaches the opposite. As Wayne Grudem says in his 1984 essay, Biblical Reasons for Sending Children to A Christian School,

I know of no verse of Scripture that tells me that secular training will “strengthen” Christian children. It may callous them so they view sin as more “normal.” It may harden them so they care more about the things of the world and less about God. It may desensitize them so they are more comfortable living in the midst of repeated sin against their Lord. But it will not strengthen them as Christian men and women: “Train up a child in the way he should go” (Prov. 22:6).

3. Boundaries. Involvement in public school can become all-encompassing to the detriment of the family and church involvement, two things the Scriptures hold in high esteem. Sports, band, and other extra-curricular activities through public schools are simply out of control in terms of time commitment and the importance they are given. Sports practice and games have moved into Sunday mornings and can fill every week night, keeping children away from their families and from steady church involvement. In too many schools, students must choose between sports and church - they simply cannot have both - and parents too frequently value their children being good athletes over being disciples of Jesus. Certainly, parents whose children attend public school can set healthy boundaries for their children, but I would rather not have my child in a school that I have an adversarial relationship with. In a solid Christian schools, family and church life are still held in high esteem, and appropriate boundaries are put in place to keep school activities from undermining a healthy family and church life.

These are my thoughts so far. I could go on with more, but that is enough for today. What do you think? Click on "comments" below and share your thoughts.

Language Study and Seminary

I came across this very interesting blog called Ancient Hebrew Poetry today and spent some time reading several posts. John Hobbins is a biblical languages scholar with a specialty in Hebrew poetry, as the blog title indicates. Here is a quote from one interesting post on language study in American seminaries. Read the whole post here.

The situation is the following: seminaries and theological schools in North America, more often than not, do not require students to learn the languages of the Bible and of the core literature of the tradition they are charged to uphold. In those that do – e.g., evangelical seminaries that require Greek and Hebrew, conservative Lutheran seminaries that require Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and German, Catholic seminaries that require Latin - students nowadays come to the seminaries with little or no background in said languages. The result is inevitable. Overwhelmed by many other claims on time and mind, students end up with a merely cursory and superficial preparation in the literature that is supposed to be compass, mirror, and anchor of the ministry they will carry out.

Many students finish seminary with a semblance of familiarity with critical methods, and a few memorable anecdotes to tell about their OT profs, who, by all accounts, are cooler than their NT colleagues, but with no thorough knowledge of, or  “chapter by chapter” and “verse by verse” familiarity with, the contents of biblical literature. 

Seminaries that have kept language requirements in place, a laudable policy, are nevertheless failing to raise up priests and pastors with a love of biblical learning in the original languages. The vast majority of students, upon graduation and ordination, place their Nestle-Aland and BHS on a bookshelf of their study, where they collect dust forever and ever, amen.

Which way forward?

I particularly like his line that the literature of the Bible is "supposed to be compass, mirror, and anchor of the ministry they will carry out." What person with a high view of inspiration would argue with that? Read further into the post where he compares seminary education in Europe with American seminary education and you will be amazed at what we typically do not get here.

Update on "The Reality of Doctorates and Teaching"

Last year I wrote a short post on the realities of pursuing a doctorate and teaching. I've just added a link to that post to a blog I discovered yesterday by Duke Th.D. student Andy Rowell. There Rowell explains the differences between Duke's Th.D. and Ph.D. programs and sheds light on many issues connected to earning a doctorate. For those of you interested in doctoral studies in one of the theological disciplines, go check out his blog.

Meeting a Need: South African Theological Doctorates

For several years I have been stuck.  I have been trapped by a dilemma that seemed to have no solution, but now one has appeared.  The dilemma is this: how can I continue in pastoral ministry while at the same time pursuing an academic degree in systematic theology when there are no schools close by to me that offer such a degree? 

The issue of a school being nearby is crucial to me since I do not wish to relocate near a school and leave my present ministry.  You see, doctoral programs require a thing called residency; you must physically live near the school in order to participate in traditional classes, engage with a community in scholarly pursuits and, not of least importance, help the school maintain its accreditation.  Accreditors, it seems, require residency in research-oriented doctoral programs.  In practial doctorate programs, such as the D.Min., residency is usually limited to a few weeks a year, in contrast to several years for a Ph.D. or Th.D.

So one solution for folks like me is to seek out a solid, credible, but not accredited doctoral program that can be completed without residency.  Now, there are few schools that provide a high-quality doctoral program in theology.  One excellent unaccredited school is Columbia Evangelical Seminary.  This school provides a quality Th.D. program that is truly respectable and fits the needs of many people, and does so at a great price.  But if one needs a degree from an accredited school to qualify for teaching, etc. at an accredited school, a degree from an unaccredited school will not suffice.

So what to do?  If you don't want to or cannot relocate to go to school, is there another option?  Yes, there is.  The answer is distance learning through one of the strong schools in South Africa.  There are several strong, fully-accredited, academically sound universities and at least one private seminary that can help: The University of South Africa, University of Stellenbosch, University of the Free State, University of Pretoria, and others. 

My choice is the South African Theological Seminary (SATS), a relatively new and private school that is fully accredited and academically strong.  SATS offers a Doctor of Theology degree (the theological equivalent of a Ph.D.) that requires no residency.  All the work is done via a mentor, dissertation committe, etc.  Thank God for the internet! And while the cost is more than doing a D.Th. through one of South Africa's state-supported schools, the difference is worth it because it is a firmly evangelical school. I have been "provisionally accepted" into their program.  I can begin once I send them the first year's tuition.

Are doctorates from South Africa finding good acceptance here in the U.S.?  Check out DegreeDiscussion.com for a thoughts on this. The acceptance appears to be growing based on the quality work of some who hold them.  Sure, it can be argued that it is best for one's career to relocate and attend a school at home, but when the choice appears to be between a quality doctoral program via distance learning and no doctoral program at all, the choice is clear. 

I'd love to hear from others who have experience with one of the South African schools in the fields of either biblical studies or theology.  What has been your experience?

The Reality of Doctorates and Teaching

Many seminary students and graduates get the "doctorate bug."  Their educational experience is such that they fall in love with learning and new ideas, and at times dream of what it would be like to be a professor.  Little do they know the real amount of work that Ph.D./Th.D. studies demand, nor what the day-to-day academic life of a full-time professor is actually like. 

Pastors, at times, get bitten by the doctorate bug as well.  Some want to escape the rigors of pastoral life by trading for an academic one and so pursue Ph.D. work, while others merely want to be addressed as "Doctor," so they enter a D.Min. program which has far fewer demands than an academic doctorate.  And then there are some pastors who honestly want to continue their education for more effective pastoral ministry and so they pursue doctoral studies.

Professor Keith Drury of Indiana Wesleyan University has done us a great service in describing what the day-to-day life of a professor is actually like here.  Read this, and any romanticizing of the professorial life will die a quick death. If teaching still appeals to you after reading this, than maybe you are truly called to teach.

Professor John Stackhouse of Regent College has written a nice piece about what it takes to choose, get into, and survive a Ph.D. program in theology, religion, etc.  What you will gain from reading this is that you must seriously count the cost before entering a quality doctoral program.  That is, if you can get into one at all.

Update 3-13-09: Duke D.Th. student Andy Rowell provides great help on getting into a doctoral program, the differences between a Th.D. and Ph.D. at Duke and much, much more at his blog.

Book Review - Walston's Guide

Walston's Guide to Christian Distance Learning, by Rick Walston, president of Columbia Evangelical Seminary, is an incredibly useful tool and should be consulted by everyone considering a DL school for ministry preparation.

Now in its 5th edition, Walston's Guide continues its history of clarifying what distinguishes good schools from bad ones, and all that is in between.  Particularly helpful is chapter 2, in which Walston gives his "10 Commandments of Judging a School."  The 10 questions he asks here provide helpful guidance in evaluating a school, especially unaccredited ones.  On the issue of accreditation, Walston makes a good case for the meaninglessness of accreditation through an accrediting agency that is not recognized by the US Dept. of Education.

Walston's book makes several important distinctions that students need to be aware of.  First, he makes the point that an unaccredited school is by no means necessarily a poor quality school, and that an accredited school is not necessarily a good one.  Quality of education, sound faculty, employing generally accepted academic standards and honesty are what matters the most in terms of quality (but not necessarily acceptance by employers).  Second, Walston coined the term "cullege" as a tertium quid between diploma mills that basically grant degrees based on no or little work and are illegal, and good schools that are legal and use generally accepted academic standards.  Culleges, in contrast to diploma mills, are legal (and may be accredited by one of the many unrecognized accreditors), but are truly substandard in their demands on students and therefore are a joke as well.   The term "cullege" is a combination of the words college  and cull, which is "Something picked out or removed from others, especially something rejected because of inferior quality" (page 24).

With distance-learning exploding across the globe due to the World Wide Web, students need guidance on sorting out the good from the bad.  Walston's Guide provides that and more.  For me, it has prompted a change of schools.  More on that later.