Holy Language and the Christian School

I googled Christian schools to see what would come up. The first school on the page that came up had this mission statement:

“The mission of XYZ Christian School is to develop students with a heart for God, who grow as Jesus did in wisdom, stature and in favor with God and men."

Now I happen to like mission statements and think they can have great power. My intention here is not to criticize or even critique this mission statement but to use it as a starting point for the issue of holy language and Christian schools. I think of and experience holy language in our schools as being the use of catch words, phrases, favorite Bible verses, theology, doctrinal statements that gets in the way of running an excellent educational institution that is financially viable, organizationally sound, and actually dedicated to children. Let’s give three examples:

·      “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut. 8:3 and quoted by Jesus) This verse and other verses like it get in the way of Christian schools making financial plans, thinking about money, charging tuition that is needed in order to run the school with excellence, living budgets that support programs.

·      “Teaching is a ministry.” This is not a Biblical verse but it is holy language all the same. It is used to justify low salaries, poor benefits, work overload as teachers work ‘sacrificially’ in ‘service’ to their ‘calling’. I have been in many schools, and recently, where teachers were paid wages that qualified them for food stamps, were given no retirement benefits, had to pay for classroom resources out of their meagre resources, and had heavier teaching loads than their secular private and public school colleagues.

·      Here is a list of what ails Christian education as articulated by Kingdom Education Ministries in 2015: Need #1: The Need for Bold Leadership; Need #2: The Need to Break Down the Wall of the Secular/Sacred Divide; Need #3: The Need to Develop a Biblical Worldview; Need #4: The Need to Understand a Biblical Philosophy of Education; Need #5: The Need to Understand Biblical Worldview Integration; Need #6: The Need to Strive for Biblical Excellence. With all due respect, a better list would have been More Money for Pretty Much Everything; Training for Administrators; Holding Teachers Accountable for Each Student Outcomes; Funding a Reserve to Fix Leaky Rooves; Training for Trustees so They Know What They’re Doing; Ensuring the Pastor/Priest doesn’t get In The Way.

Here’s the problem. Holy language is not helping us compete in our neighborhoods with other schools. The National Center for Education Statistics tells us that we have suffered a 12% drop in students attending our schools and that, at the same time as the number of children is rising in the USA and Canada, it estimates that we will suffer a further 6% decline over the next 8 years. That’s a decrease of another 300,000 students which at an average of 200 students a school equals another 1500 Christian schools closing. One of the reasons for that is holy language.

Let’s look at the mission statement above. It’s like apple pie. Sounds great. Full of strong images. Redolent of Scripture. It’s a great starting point. But, as with all language that is Biblically inflected, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. James says in 2:18 of his Epistle: “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds”. Let me paraphrase what he says before this verse.  14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have holy language but can’t run a school or teach a class? Can such language save them? 15 Suppose a student is failing or a teacher doesn’t have resources. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; work hard and pray,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Many of us are still living in the 20th century when:

·      parents sent their children to school

·      children sat in rows and did what they were told

·      churches were full and prosperous

·      society was predictable

·      education had clear directions and routes

·      teachers had authority and knowledge

·      competition was the public and local independent school

Let’s contrast that with the competitive reality of the 21st century:

·      children decide whether they want to go to your school; parents support them

·      children have smart phones and get bored by sitting in rows in about 2 minutes flat

·      churches are declining and donors are aging and dying

·      society is volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous

·      education has uncertain directions and routes

·      teachers must win authority and are not the only expert in the room

·      competition includes charter, magnet, home school, public, independent, online

Don’t get me wrong. I believe fervently that we should get on our knees and pray for wisdom. I believe that we should be deeply imbued with understanding of Scripture. I believe that a Biblically integrated worldview throughout the Christian school’s curriculum is its fundamental reason for existence. But just saying those things won’t save us from the competition that exists today. Ranting about the decay of our society is not an excuse for being incompetent ourselves. Obsessing about sexuality and gender ignores the logs in our administrative and financial and curricular eyes. Studying the Bible is critical, and equally critical is understanding what neuroscience is telling us about our children’s learning needs, and what research into motivation is telling us about practices that kill our children’s desire to go to class, and what research into time should be telling us about the organization of time to meet our children’s chrono-biological needs.

This is not secular versus religious. Unsurprisingly, when we carry out practices that are clearly cultural and not in the least scriptural, Scripture itself rebukes us and tells us to pay attention with not very holy language at all. Just some examples:

Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain. (Deuteronomy 25:4) cf. wages

“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 3: 5) cf. wages

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. (Luke 8: 1-3) cf. philanthropy

And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of administration, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. (1 Corinthians 12:8) cf. teaching and administration

.... and many others.

We should not eliminate speaking in the words of Scripture. As my grandmother would say, that’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But it shouldn’t be pick and choose Scripture, and it should be Scripture in the cultural context of today, and it should be accompanied by strong leadership that takes our schools into today’s competitive marketplace and offers excellence in every area of our schools’ actions.