The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 XII. Education
Education is a major topic today. And the topic of education is of massive importance to our church, our society, and the world. That is why this is ground zero for many of the battles that are taking place in our country.
As a local church, education is important to us. We have children in our congregation, and we need to know what knowledge is and how we are to educate our children. But it’s not just children that are the concern. It is adults as well. The preaching of this church, the teaching times, Men’s and Women’s Bible Ministries, children’s and youth classes, and Sunday School all are informed by this topic of education.
As a convention we have all of the already mentioned topics to consider, as well as how our Southern Baptist Colleges and Seminaries are to function. What is distinctly Christian education? What is the balance academic freedom and our responsibility to the authoritative Scriptures?
Here is the section on Education from the Baptist Faith and Message.
XII. Education
Christianity is the faith of enlightenment and intelligence. In Jesus Christ abide all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All sound learning is, therefore, a part of our Christian heritage. The new birth opens all human faculties and creates a thirst for knowledge. Moreover, the cause of education in the Kingdom of Christ is co-ordinate with the causes of missions and general benevolence, and should receive along with these the liberal support of the churches. An adequate system of Christian education is necessary to a complete spiritual program for Christ’s people.
In Christian education there should be a proper balance between academic freedom and academic responsibility. Freedom in any orderly relationship of human life is always limited and never absolute. The freedom of a teacher in a Christian school, college, or seminary is limited by the pre-eminence of Jesus Christ, by the authoritative nature of the Scriptures, and by the distinct purpose for which the school exists.
Deuteronomy 4:1,5,9,14; 6:1-10; 31:12-13; Nehemiah 8:1-8; Job 28:28; Psalms 19:7ff.; 119:11; Proverbs 3:13ff.; 4:1-10; 8:1-7,11; 15:14; Ecclesiastes 7:19; Matthew 5:2; 7:24ff.; 28:19-20; Luke 2:40; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Ephesians 4:11-16; Philippians 4:8; Colossians 2:3,8-9; 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 2 Timothy 2:15; 3:14-17; Hebrews 5:12-6:3; James 1:5; 3:17.
Christianity is the faith of enlightenment and intelligence.
Turn on the news and you’ll likely hear the opposite said about us. It is not uncommon to hear people portray Christians as a people of massive ignorance. Don’t listen to them. Think through what the Scriptures say.
Questions of knowledge and truth permeate scholarly endeavors today. Everyone who writes a Systematic Theology book or discusses how people learn must first deal with the question of how we know things. And that question is not just discussed in the theology department. It is also the starting point for most philosophy classes. Is knowledge something that comes from within us or outside of us? Where does truth come from? Is truth even something that we are capable of knowing?
Now this may seem like something we should not be concerned with. It may seem like a vacuous discussion, so full of meaninglessness that it’s not worth wasting your breath over, but this is where we must begin if we are going to get anywhere with the topic of education.
And that is where our statement begins. “Christianity is the faith of enlightenment and intelligence”.
By “enlightenment” we do not mean the historical period of “enlightenment”. We mean light that comes from outside of us and found ultimately in God. This is the reason that theology was once thought to be the Queen of the Sciences. Science, mathematics, history, philosophy, and everything else led us to theology (The study of God). And theology is where all of these things flowed from.
This is a consequence of what we have earlier stated about Natural Revelation and Special Revelation from part I of the Baptist Faith and Message. I will state it briefly here.
God has revealed Himself to us through natural revelation and special revelation. Natural Revelation is God’s revelation of Himself in all of Creation, which includes us. Special Revelation is God’s revelation of Himself in His Word, the Scriptures. So, I can learn things about God’s immensity and His power in Natural Revelation. But I can’t learn that Christ died for me by staring at a tree. All people have Natural Revelation. Only those that read or hear from God’s Word have Special Revelation. And this means that the light comes from outside of us.
In Jesus Christ abide all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All sound learning is, therefore, a part of our Christian heritage.
All things are held together by Christ (Colossians 1:17). And in Him are “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”. And so, we would see all truth, whether that be mathematics, science, history, philosophy, or any other truth as “part of our Christian heritage.”
There was a time when this was understood by almost everyone in the Western World. Most of the well-known scientists of old were Christians who believed that they could learn things because God had created a Universe that could be studied. Out of their theological understandings flowed the great findings of the past. Because these people of the past had a Christian worldview, they could study the world.
Without these people and their Christian worldview there would be no Scientific Method (Francis Bacon), we would not understand that the Earth rotates around the Sun (Nicolaus Copernicus), the telescope wouldn’t be a thing (Galileo), the calculator, the syringe, and the hydraulic press (Blaise Pascal), gravity (Isaac Newton). I will stop here because this could go on and on. But the point is that these men, many of which were mathematicians, viewed the world with a Christian lens and therefore understood that all truth ultimately led to and from God.
That is what we mean when we say that all sound learning is “a part of our Christian heritage”.
The new birth opens all human faculties and creates a thirst for knowledge.
This does not mean that Christians are the only people that want to know things. There are plenty of people that desire to explore and know things. You can probably think of people right now that are not believers that have spent their entire lives trying to explore and know the Universe.
What we are saying with this statement is that when God works in us and causes us to be born again we are relieved from seeking knowledge in a one-sided manner (John 3:1-15, Ezekiel 36:22-27, 2 Corinthians 5:17). We are freed from seeking knowledge in a godless manner. We now view the world as it really exists and are freed to explore the world in a manner that an Atheistic Mathematician or Scientist is not. We now have the ability to come to the true beginning and end of exploration, and that is God.
And we also understand that the “new birth” creates within us a “thirst for knowledge”. The believer now has a longing and desire to know the God who created all things. So, whether it is as we study God’s Word or as we look under a microscope, our endeavor is filled with incredible significance. The new birth gives to us a desire to know God in all our endeavors. God has gifted us with a desire to know Him.
In the new birth and throughout our life, we are being “renewed” in the knowledge of God.
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (Colossians 3:5-10 ESV)
Moreover, the cause of education in the Kingdom of Christ is co-ordinate with the causes of missions and general benevolence, and should receive along with these the liberal support of the churches.
There is a reason that so many churches and Christians have come together to establish schools over the years. The Puritans established schools in their towns shortly after arriving to America. And they were quite good. Many historians believe that the literacy rate of Puritan New England was higher than America’s literacy rate today. And they were just part of a long line of people that understood that the cause of education was something that should be taken up by Christians.
In more modern times, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, churches saw the problem of children going to work with their fathers. This happened in both England and in America. An entire generation of kids was going to work instead of getting an education before laws were passed that would keep children out of the workforce. The Church’s response to the lack of education of children in America was Sunday School. Children were working six days a week in harsh conditions and the church responded by educating the children on Sunday. It was a way of teaching and evangelizing these children.
Furthermore, one of the things we are looking forward to is the day when the knowledge of the Lord covers the Earth. And many people, myself included, believe that this is going to be something that God accomplishes through the Church over time.
“They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9 ESV)
“”Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity! Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:12-14 ESV)
Education is a large part of our endeavor to disciple the nations. So, we establish schools both here and in foreign lands as part of the cause of Christ. We teach children to read, write, learn, and explore God’s creation as part of the mission God has given us to spread the gospel to the nations. But that is also what is happening as we teach the BFM 2000, do Sunday School, or hear a sermon preached on Sunday. We are filling the world with the knowledge of the Lord.
Education is definitely a cause that our church should get behind. And we do. We support education through our giving to the Cooperative Program. Colleges and Seminaries are supported nationwide with that giving and so are some of the colleges in our own state.
An adequate system of Christian education is necessary to a complete spiritual program for Christ’s people.
A true education is Christian. And in light of what we have already said that makes sense. We can’t know rightly unless we know Christianly. If all truth flows from God and back to God, there is not a way that we can make a true education and a right knowing secular.
That is why our education should begin in our home and in our church. So the system of education that we choose for our children will look different, but we start here. We homeschool our children, choosing to view every subject in a Christian manner. Some people send their children to Christian school to do the same thing. Some people send their children to government schools and choose to supplement that education with Christianity at home and at church.
We must never think that we are not in charge of the education of our children. The education of our children is the responsibility of parents, not teachers. If we decide to utilize teachers, then we are overseeing what is being taught. If we decide to do it at home, then we are doing all of the teaching.
In Christian education there should be a proper balance between academic freedom and academic responsibility. Freedom in any orderly relationship of human life is always limited and never absolute. The freedom of a teacher in a Christian school, college, or seminary is limited by the pre-eminence of Jesus Christ, by the authoritative nature of the Scriptures, and by the distinct purpose for which the school exists.
The last paragraph is one that really discusses the rules of engagement for Southern Baptists in the field of education. This is important for us to think through and consider because we support a number of schools across the country, and even around the globe. How are the seminaries and Christian schools to operate? How much freedom do they have in what they teach and study?
Simply put, they should be free to do the work of an academic. But this freedom is not absolute. It is limited by Christ, His Word, and the purpose of the school.
A short way of saying this is that a distinctly Christian education should be Christian.
I want to illustrate this with a story from the seminary I graduated from. It is a story that is often told at the seminary as a warning about this very point. It is the story of Crawford Howell Toy.
Crawford Howell Toy was one of the first graduates of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was a brilliant academic with a gift for languages. At this time he also courted the very well known Lottie Moon. After he fought in the Civil War he went to Germany and studied theology and the Semitic languages. And the relationship with Lottie Moon was broken off. He came back from Germany and taught at Furman University and then came back to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to teach.
At Southern, Toy was the most popular professor. He was incredibly intelligent. A huge problem became evident. He was using German Higher Criticism in his interpretation of Scripture. He did not treat the Word of God as a supernatural work, nor did he believe it to be true anymore. He had signed the Abstract of Principles, which was the belief statement, but he either lied or weirdly interpreted the words. Whatever the case was, he was not teaching in accordance with the Seminary’s purpose or with God’s Word. And so, he left the school never to return again.
You can read about Crawford Howell Toy in numerous articles. Liberal hail him as a hero. Theological Conservatives, however, see his life as a great warning concerning Christian education.
Conclusion
Education is important. And it’s important to us as Southern Baptists. And our statement of faith helps us to think through and understand knowledge and education.
R. Dwain Minor