Cosmic war not culture war
Recently one of my best friends and I were talking about “Christian” education and whether or not it’s part of the culture war. He thinks yes, and in some sense he’s obviously right. A large part of teaching in the private arena these days is due to the insanity of the western left. Their attempts to intellectually colonize the children of others have finally started to bite back via MAGA. But that’s not necessarily Christian education, that’s any form of education not directly lead by centralized public education. Especially in America any attempt to deplug from public education is in some sense counter culture and hence culture warring.
But to me this is clearly dangerous because it makes Christian education part of a contemporary political thing. And that starts to be what characterizes it, especially in America where everything is inherently political because our cultural institutions are so weak. Actually our liberal cultural institutions aren’t weak, but the ones with any semblance of conservatism or Christianity tend to be quite thin.
And allowing these thin institutions to be defined by culture warring is a mistake. When the enemies come to the gates you must stand strong, but Conservatives aren’t supposed to be looking for a fight. Christ is our King and he will lead us into battle when it’s necessary, and His Spirit within the Church has and will continue to trod upon the gates of hell. Christian education can’t be tied to the moment, it must be about something bigger…something eternal.
My philosophy of Christian education is essentially that education itself is inherently Christian. To educate, teach, and illuminate this dark world is a divine action. It is not culture warring, it is cosmic warring. God gives Adam and Eve enough knowledge to obey, then the serpent twists it and instead of holding fast to the wisdom of their teacher they twist it as well. To educate is to fight the serpent and his lies. To speak truth is to fight lies. Our enemies are not of this earth but are powers and principalities in the heavens. All real education is therefore Christian, all real education is hated by the forces of darkness.
There’s a great scene in Wrinkle in Time where Charles Wallace lists warriors of light:
Who have our fighters been?” Calvin asked. “Oh, you must know them, dear,” Mrs Whatsit said. Mrs Who’s spectacles shone out at them triumphantly, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” “Jesus!” Charles Wallace said. “Why, of course, Jesus!” “Of course!” Mrs Whatsit said. “Go on, Charles, love. There were others. All your great artists. They’ve been lights for us to see by.” “Leonardo da Vinci?” Calvin suggested tentatively. “And Michelangelo?” “And Shakespeare,” Charles Wallace called out, “and Bach! And Pasteur and Madame Curie and Einstein!” Now Calvin’s voice rang with confidence. “And Schweitzer and Gandhi and Buddha and Beethoven and Rembrandt and St. Francis!”
It’s not perfect, I think including Buddha in particular is troubling…unless you consider that he did away with the caste system or that certain forms of Buddhist meditation can literally change our brains making them healthier. I don’t think L’Engle was making a point about orthodox Christian theology so much as pointing out that many humans have done good and contributed to knowledge against the darkness. Education is education, knowledge is knowledge, and the darkness hates truth.
All truth is God’s truth has been abused by idiots and liars, but that doesn’t make the statement untrue, it just makes the people who abused it untrue. God is Goodness, Beauty, and Truth. To learn a real fact is to learn something good. It’s not difficult to see how this could be abused, but we have to stop looking at the mistakes and start looking at the God who sent His Spirit to lead us into Truth. That is the essence of fundamentalism vs Real Christianity. Real Christianity looks at the King and follows him, fundamentalism looks at the world and runs away.
If you’re following the King you will fight in battles, but they will be His battles. That’s real Christian Nationalism, and it has nothing to do with politics. We are a nation of priests, or rather a nation characterized by THE Priest because we are His body in dwelt by His Spirit. This is deeply offensive to both left and right, because we belong to the Monarchy of Heaven.
Christian Educators are doing what the church has always done, bringing light to darkness. We are in conflict with Demons not the DOE. We have to keep in mind who the real enemy is, and who our real leader is. Otherwise we will get lost.