Post 23—
We are still on the issue of why some secularists want to effect changes in the Public Schools of BC. The secularists under discussion are, of course, good friends of mine and fellow members of World Views Collaborative (WVC). So, I am talking here about and even to these friends. They are three and I could name them for you. Their initials are E and K and E. Well, you know that bit about privacy that’s in the BC air.
They invited me to join them in a “crusade” to have Public School authorities in BC agree to a new high school course that would teach about all major BC world views. That would include the various religions as well as Humanism, their own world view. I joined them because I agreed this would be a good thing and I am glad I did, for I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my WVC friends in a setting where everyone is very definite about their own world view but also very open, respectful and courteous about that of others.
I have tried to warn E, K and E that they could be opening up a can of their own worms. As it is, their world view is actually the reigning one in the Public Schools. There is no course teaching their world view, but theirs is the entire basis of the system and all courses are based on the secular world view. Now, of course, like other religions/world view, secularists are also divided amongst themselves, so that many of them will have some critique of the Public School system. However, by and large it is theirs that is the very atmosphere that the students and teachers breathe in these schools as the assumed truth that is hardly ever subject to scrutiny in those schools. The entire world view is simply assumed and considered neutral enough that everyone can subscribe to it. ‘t Ain’t so. Many do not subscribe to it and hence have transferred to schools more amenable to their own world view—after they have been forced to pay the taxes to have the establishment world view of Secularism taught.
E, K and E, do you not realize how privileged your world view is in the Public School? Without anyone overtly teaching it, students just soak it in effortlessly without realizing it. I know, for I have been through it and did indeed soak it up without realizing how I slowly veered away from my own Christian world view. Oh, I did not lose my faith, but my views of the world and events and scientific discoveries, etc. all became increasingly secularized. It was not until I began taking courses in Christian philosophy at university level that I began to realize that I had been secularized in much of my thinking. The secular world view of the system almost achieved its purpose with me.
But no one seems to realize that secularism is really the establishment faith or world view. It is exactly that. Now, if the schools are going to teach that course, including Secularism, students are going to question that world view that previously they simply imbibed unconsciously. Students and parents may suddenly begin to realize that there is nothing neutral about this perspective and that it is as subjective as all the other world views taught in the course. It, too, can be questioned and rejected like all the others or accepted. Its privileged status in the schools will be questioned. That is the can of worms I am talking about.
And with its privileged status now being questioned, people will begin to ask why the Public School only supports this one particular world view and not any of these others. Canadians have long ago rejected the notion of an establishment worldview, at least, when it was a Christian one. Catholics long had that dubious privilege in Quebec and they still enjoy the financial residue of that in Ontario. Anglicans have been the establishment in Ontario and, if my BC history is not completely off the track, even enjoyed a minor version of it on Vancouver Island. People have revolted against such arrangements and many take it ill of these churches for the establishmentarian roles they have played. E, K and E, is that what you are looking for? You really want those worms out of the can? Having an annual Christmas tree in these schools or one or two other tokens of our Christian past is a small price to pay for having your world view presented as unquestioned gospel truth.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Why Many Christians Opt out of Public Schools (2)
Post 22--
Post 21 was a bit theoretical and vague. I made a big point of the fact that all human beings, including Secularists, Humanists and Atheists, are believers. We all build our lives on a set of values that we believe, but that we cannot prove. We call that total package of beliefs our “worldview.” Christians are very aware of that; most Secularists—from here on in this blog I use this term to refer also to Humanists and Atheists—are not. That is their blind spot and serious weakness. They believe in autonomous reason and in its ability to potentially understand everything and determine good and evil, but few realize it is a belief they have not proved and will never prove. Christians, on the other hand, recognize that the human race went through a serious fall or break with God, with themselves, their neighbours and all of the universe way back when in our history. The first chapters of Genesis are a poetic or mythical representation of that tragic event. That fall also created a serious disconnect between our reason and reality, a disconnect that can only be restored with the help of divine revelation.
This divine revelation comes in two forms: the Bible and the book of nature or creation, often called “natural revelation.” The knowledge gained in the second form requires correction from the Bible. These two supplement each other. It is the same God who reveals Himself, His wisdom and His will in both.
What does all this mean in practical terms? It means that Secularists draw conclusions with the aid of their autonomous self-directed reason about what is good and wise in this world, while Christians also check out the Creator’s will and wisdom for this world by consulting the Bible. This difference drives the two groups towards different conclusions. Let me illustrate the point by random use of abortion as an example.
Secular abortionists defend the practice of wholesale murder, a less euphemistic term than “abortion,” of human fetuses on basis of the priority they have placed on the freedom of women to control their own bodies. Probably in reaction to centuries of restricting the freedom of women, they now advocate total freedom for women to control their own bodies. Away with all restrictions! In view of the history of women in most or even all cultures, this attitude seems to make some rational sense. If you have no point of reference beyond yourself, your community or science, that’s kind of a natural way for you to go. The human race is like a pendulum that keeps swinging from one extreme to another without ever resting at a balanced situation. So, from centuries of chains, as some would interpret the history of women, to complete unrestricted autonomy over my own body.
Christians on the other hand…. Well, many Christians, not all. Many have been taken in by the powerful rationalism of secularism. The practice of abortion has become so widespread that it has lost all shock value. Many of us have gotten used to it. The horror associated with this wholesale destruction of human beings has evaporated. It’s become as common as making a grilled cheese sandwich. These two factors, the secular air that we all breathe in and the daily practice of abortion have led even people who want to take God’s Word seriously at other fronts, to accept abortion, though they will tell you they don’t really like it. But, they may argue, you can’t tell others what to do or not to do!
Oh, you can’t? Why can you tell people not to kill that same fetus that has just now made its way into the world? On what basis? What is the difference? The difference lies in your point of reference. Autonomous reason and autonomous women’s bodies? Off to the clinic we will go. The Word of God? Then the life of the fetus trumps the freedom of the woman. Freedom is part of the Christian message, but it is freedom within the law of God and within His priorities.
Most Christian denominations in the world--as well as most other religions-- oppose wholesale abortion. Though they also wish to see women enjoy freedom, there are other considerations that they pick up from the Bible. There is the Biblical emphasis on the absolute sacredness of life that has priority over female freedom to abort a life already started. These Christians are also pro-choice, but the choice is made at the time of sexual intercourse leading to pregnancy. That’s when they make their choice. If pregnancy results, a new life has been started that is sacred from its inception. It is God’s gift that is to be accepted with gratitude and faith and as a challenge.
So, the difference is not that some people are cruel and others nasty. Or that some prefer women; others, babies. The difference is our point of reference, autonomous reason or reason guided by the Word of God. But both are matters of belief. This same difference crops up in many social, political, sexual, cultural and economic issues.
Many Christians and people of other religions opt out of the Public Schools, because there the autonomy of Secularism holds sway. God’s Word may not serve as a point of reference. All things religious are banned, except perhaps some cultural residues like Christmas trees. But the main atmosphere is that of Secularism—all the way from kindergarten through university. In fact, in most of those quarters religion is scoffed. We Christians have high regard for reason and for the scientific enterprise, but we prefer our reasoning to be directed by the Word of God and reject autonomous reason.
The next post will try to explain why my secularist friends from World Views Collaborative are unhappy enough with a Public School system to change it, even though it is based on their worldview!
Post 21 was a bit theoretical and vague. I made a big point of the fact that all human beings, including Secularists, Humanists and Atheists, are believers. We all build our lives on a set of values that we believe, but that we cannot prove. We call that total package of beliefs our “worldview.” Christians are very aware of that; most Secularists—from here on in this blog I use this term to refer also to Humanists and Atheists—are not. That is their blind spot and serious weakness. They believe in autonomous reason and in its ability to potentially understand everything and determine good and evil, but few realize it is a belief they have not proved and will never prove. Christians, on the other hand, recognize that the human race went through a serious fall or break with God, with themselves, their neighbours and all of the universe way back when in our history. The first chapters of Genesis are a poetic or mythical representation of that tragic event. That fall also created a serious disconnect between our reason and reality, a disconnect that can only be restored with the help of divine revelation.
This divine revelation comes in two forms: the Bible and the book of nature or creation, often called “natural revelation.” The knowledge gained in the second form requires correction from the Bible. These two supplement each other. It is the same God who reveals Himself, His wisdom and His will in both.
What does all this mean in practical terms? It means that Secularists draw conclusions with the aid of their autonomous self-directed reason about what is good and wise in this world, while Christians also check out the Creator’s will and wisdom for this world by consulting the Bible. This difference drives the two groups towards different conclusions. Let me illustrate the point by random use of abortion as an example.
Secular abortionists defend the practice of wholesale murder, a less euphemistic term than “abortion,” of human fetuses on basis of the priority they have placed on the freedom of women to control their own bodies. Probably in reaction to centuries of restricting the freedom of women, they now advocate total freedom for women to control their own bodies. Away with all restrictions! In view of the history of women in most or even all cultures, this attitude seems to make some rational sense. If you have no point of reference beyond yourself, your community or science, that’s kind of a natural way for you to go. The human race is like a pendulum that keeps swinging from one extreme to another without ever resting at a balanced situation. So, from centuries of chains, as some would interpret the history of women, to complete unrestricted autonomy over my own body.
Christians on the other hand…. Well, many Christians, not all. Many have been taken in by the powerful rationalism of secularism. The practice of abortion has become so widespread that it has lost all shock value. Many of us have gotten used to it. The horror associated with this wholesale destruction of human beings has evaporated. It’s become as common as making a grilled cheese sandwich. These two factors, the secular air that we all breathe in and the daily practice of abortion have led even people who want to take God’s Word seriously at other fronts, to accept abortion, though they will tell you they don’t really like it. But, they may argue, you can’t tell others what to do or not to do!
Oh, you can’t? Why can you tell people not to kill that same fetus that has just now made its way into the world? On what basis? What is the difference? The difference lies in your point of reference. Autonomous reason and autonomous women’s bodies? Off to the clinic we will go. The Word of God? Then the life of the fetus trumps the freedom of the woman. Freedom is part of the Christian message, but it is freedom within the law of God and within His priorities.
Most Christian denominations in the world--as well as most other religions-- oppose wholesale abortion. Though they also wish to see women enjoy freedom, there are other considerations that they pick up from the Bible. There is the Biblical emphasis on the absolute sacredness of life that has priority over female freedom to abort a life already started. These Christians are also pro-choice, but the choice is made at the time of sexual intercourse leading to pregnancy. That’s when they make their choice. If pregnancy results, a new life has been started that is sacred from its inception. It is God’s gift that is to be accepted with gratitude and faith and as a challenge.
So, the difference is not that some people are cruel and others nasty. Or that some prefer women; others, babies. The difference is our point of reference, autonomous reason or reason guided by the Word of God. But both are matters of belief. This same difference crops up in many social, political, sexual, cultural and economic issues.
Many Christians and people of other religions opt out of the Public Schools, because there the autonomy of Secularism holds sway. God’s Word may not serve as a point of reference. All things religious are banned, except perhaps some cultural residues like Christmas trees. But the main atmosphere is that of Secularism—all the way from kindergarten through university. In fact, in most of those quarters religion is scoffed. We Christians have high regard for reason and for the scientific enterprise, but we prefer our reasoning to be directed by the Word of God and reject autonomous reason.
The next post will try to explain why my secularist friends from World Views Collaborative are unhappy enough with a Public School system to change it, even though it is based on their worldview!
Monday, November 1, 2010
Why Christian Opt out of Public Schools
Post 21
I promised you in the previous blog that I would explain why many Christians have opted out of the Public School system, the system that was supposed to make everyone feel comfortable but, in fact, seems not to do that.
By Christians I mean Protestants and Roman Catholics. I make a point of that, for I get the impression that at least some Catholics apply the term “Christian” only to Protestants. Catholics, we may have our differences, but when it comes to the public school system, we’re in the same boat. In fact, in BC, Protestants and Catholics, along with some other groups for reasons of their own, have banded together in an organization called Federation of Independent Schools Associations of BC (FISA).
Not all Christians attend these independent schools. Some cannot afford it, even after their faith community will often subsidize them. Others prefer the Public Schools; they are committed to them for a variety of reasons. I am not discussing these Christians and I am not casting doubt on their status as Christians.
This Federation has its secretariat in downtown Vancouver. Since 1966, it has fought a long and hard battle on behalf of the various independent schools in the province, both religious and secular. While it educates 11% of BC’s primary and secondary students, it receives only 5% support from the BC government school budget. The maximum grant to an independent school is 1/2 the per pupil grant to a public school. The rest has to be coughed up by the parents, who are already paying the same hard cash for the Public Schools that everyone else is paying. Good deal for the province and public school supporters. Should these schools close down, it would be a financial catastrophe for the Ministry of Education, especially in these days of dollar shortages and school closures.
I urge you to explore their website and then follow especially the links to the websites of the Christian members of the FISA, for they will give you more of the Christian rationale. I also highly recommend their major publication: Victoria Cunningham, Justice Achieved: The Political Struggle of Independent Schools in British Columbia. This is a very enlightening history of the work of the FISA in obtaining legal recognition and partial funding for independent schools in British Columbia, 2002 (311 pages).
Why do these parents choose private schooling? Speaking for Christians, it is that matter of worldview or belief or faith. Christians want to see God and His Word penetrate every subject that children are taught. Of course, there are different types of Christians and I cannot represent them all in these blogs. So, I will restrict myself to my own Calvinist tradition. These Christians—I should say “we,” for I am one of them—do not accept the secular definition of religion, at least, not of the Christian religion. The Christian religion is a wholistic world view that covers all of life. The idea that Christianity is personal, for private and church matters, is the idea of secularists, not ours. We do not accept their limiting religion to a small slice of life, while the rest of life is supposedly based on a neutral platform that is rational and that everyone has in common. We do not accept that education or politics or any other sphere of life can be conducted without reference to God and His revelation, which is found both in the Bible and in nature, history or human experience. We do not want our children to get the impression that God can be left out of our daily affairs and therefore do not want Him ignored during the many hours and years our children spend in school. As if He is of little or no account.
We are rational like everyone else, but not rationalistic. Our rationality, both Christian and secular, is not a neutral objective entity where we work with what we have in common. The neutrality of reason is itself a belief. Belief in the ability of human reason to find all truth and to solve all our problems amounts to an exaggeration of our rational abilities. That belief has never been proven by anyone; it is an article of faith. Christians believe in reason, but not in an independent reason. Human reasoning is imperfect and limited. There are many areas where it cannot reach or where it is liable to going astray. Thus, while secularists believe in the ability of independent or autonomous reason to find our way in this world, Christians, along with some other religions, believe in the need for divine revelation to correct our reasoning processes that have been affected by the fall. We all believe! We are all believers. We are all in a boat, but not in the same boat, since our beliefs differ. But it is all belief! You cannot get around that.
I promised you in the previous blog that I would explain why many Christians have opted out of the Public School system, the system that was supposed to make everyone feel comfortable but, in fact, seems not to do that.
By Christians I mean Protestants and Roman Catholics. I make a point of that, for I get the impression that at least some Catholics apply the term “Christian” only to Protestants. Catholics, we may have our differences, but when it comes to the public school system, we’re in the same boat. In fact, in BC, Protestants and Catholics, along with some other groups for reasons of their own, have banded together in an organization called Federation of Independent Schools Associations of BC (FISA).
Not all Christians attend these independent schools. Some cannot afford it, even after their faith community will often subsidize them. Others prefer the Public Schools; they are committed to them for a variety of reasons. I am not discussing these Christians and I am not casting doubt on their status as Christians.
This Federation has its secretariat in downtown Vancouver. Since 1966, it has fought a long and hard battle on behalf of the various independent schools in the province, both religious and secular. While it educates 11% of BC’s primary and secondary students, it receives only 5% support from the BC government school budget. The maximum grant to an independent school is 1/2 the per pupil grant to a public school. The rest has to be coughed up by the parents, who are already paying the same hard cash for the Public Schools that everyone else is paying. Good deal for the province and public school supporters. Should these schools close down, it would be a financial catastrophe for the Ministry of Education, especially in these days of dollar shortages and school closures.
I urge you to explore their website and then follow especially the links to the websites of the Christian members of the FISA, for they will give you more of the Christian rationale. I also highly recommend their major publication: Victoria Cunningham, Justice Achieved: The Political Struggle of Independent Schools in British Columbia. This is a very enlightening history of the work of the FISA in obtaining legal recognition and partial funding for independent schools in British Columbia, 2002 (311 pages).
Why do these parents choose private schooling? Speaking for Christians, it is that matter of worldview or belief or faith. Christians want to see God and His Word penetrate every subject that children are taught. Of course, there are different types of Christians and I cannot represent them all in these blogs. So, I will restrict myself to my own Calvinist tradition. These Christians—I should say “we,” for I am one of them—do not accept the secular definition of religion, at least, not of the Christian religion. The Christian religion is a wholistic world view that covers all of life. The idea that Christianity is personal, for private and church matters, is the idea of secularists, not ours. We do not accept their limiting religion to a small slice of life, while the rest of life is supposedly based on a neutral platform that is rational and that everyone has in common. We do not accept that education or politics or any other sphere of life can be conducted without reference to God and His revelation, which is found both in the Bible and in nature, history or human experience. We do not want our children to get the impression that God can be left out of our daily affairs and therefore do not want Him ignored during the many hours and years our children spend in school. As if He is of little or no account.
We are rational like everyone else, but not rationalistic. Our rationality, both Christian and secular, is not a neutral objective entity where we work with what we have in common. The neutrality of reason is itself a belief. Belief in the ability of human reason to find all truth and to solve all our problems amounts to an exaggeration of our rational abilities. That belief has never been proven by anyone; it is an article of faith. Christians believe in reason, but not in an independent reason. Human reasoning is imperfect and limited. There are many areas where it cannot reach or where it is liable to going astray. Thus, while secularists believe in the ability of independent or autonomous reason to find our way in this world, Christians, along with some other religions, believe in the need for divine revelation to correct our reasoning processes that have been affected by the fall. We all believe! We are all believers. We are all in a boat, but not in the same boat, since our beliefs differ. But it is all belief! You cannot get around that.
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