The Christian Philosophy of Education Explained

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Quotations

The logic of an idea, once it has gained a foothold in the human psyche, has a tendency to work itself out with a relentless consistency to its ultimate con-clusions even among men of disparate cultures who have little or no contact with or knowledge of each other, but more especially so where that idea is widely accepted by a community—unless it is effectively challen-ged. And so it has been with sacerdotalism and prelacy, which even the Reformation was not able to expunge entirely from the minds of Christian men, and so the wretched harvest produced by these ideas began to grow once more before the dust thrown up by the ploughing of the Reformation had settled on the ground. And this is all the more remarkable because, as Max Weber pointed out, “every consistent doctrine of predestined grace inevitably implied a radical and ultimate devaluation of all magical, sacramental and institutional distributions of grace, in view of God’s sovereign will.”

— Stephen Perks,
The Christian Passover:
Agape Feast or Ritual Abuse?, p. 46

The Officials of the Roman Empire in time of persecution sought to force the Christians to sacrifice, not to any of the heathen gods, but to the Genius of the Emperor and the Fortune of the city of Rome; and at all times the Christians' refusal was looked upon not as a religious but as a political offence.

— Frances Legge,
Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity,
Vol, I, p. lvi.

The history of Eastern Christianity under the rule of Islam has already been written. The story is a depressing one. The history of Western Christianity under the rule of Islam has yet to be written. Whether it will ever be written may well depend on how seriously the Church in the West takes the Great Commission in the next few decades and on whether the zeal and self-sacrifice of Muslims for their jihad can be matched by the zeal and self-sacrifice of Christians for the Great Commission - indeed, whether Muslims, with their zeal and self-sacrifice, can be converted from jihad to the Great Commission.

— Stephen Perks,
"From Jihad to Great Commission"
in Christianity & Society, Vol. VIX, No. 3

Thursday

Jul282011

0-9518899-0-7 The deterioration of academic standards and discipline in state schools in the last twenty-five years has finally forced the issue of education upon the consciences of many Christians who would not otherwise have considered it. There is both good and bad in this. The crisis in education has led some to reconsider the whole issue of education and the place of Christian children in a state system that promotes secular humanism and multi-culturalism as a virtue, and discourages the traditional Christian world- view and its code of morality. This is surely good. Yet the fact that it has taken such a crisis to awaken Christian parents to their responsibilities as Christians in this areas is indicative of serious failure in the church's understanding of its calling in this world. It is a sad indictment upon the church's ministry, in particular, that this issue needed to be forced upon the consciences of Christians at all, but especially by a crisis in the practice of an alien religion, with which the church has compromised itself. In this situation there are many voices offering many different solutions to the problem. Some Christian pressure groups and parliamentary lobbying groups have tried to introduce measures into the law aimed at Christianising the state education system, others at securing state funding for so-called independent Christian schools. A few advocate the withdrawal of all education, Christian or otherwise, from the orbit of state authority and funding. In this situation it is important that all the relevant issues should be considered carefully in the light of biblical teaching. Only when this has been done are we in a position to make an intelligent decision about the correct Christian response. The aim of this book is to explain the Christian philosophy of education and thereby help those who read it to make that Christian response.

"One of the most thorough and biblical discussions of this topic available. Perks develops a clear Christian theory of knowledge, while repudiating subtle idolatries. It comes all the way from England, though no one appears to appreciate it there much yet." (Canon Press)

Author: Stephen Perks

Hardback | 169 pages | £8.95, plus postage | 0-9518899-0-7

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