The Bible does not begin with the Fall but with Creation: Our value and dignity are rooted in the fact that we are created in the image of God, with the high calling of being His representatives on earth. In fact, it is only because humans have such high value that sin is so tragic. If we were worthless to begin with, then the Fall would be a trivial event. When a cheap trinket is broken, we toss it aside with a shrug. But when a priceless masterpiece is defaced, we are horrified. It is because humans are the masterpiece of God’s creation that the destructiveness of sin produces such horror and sorrow. Far from expressing a low view of human nature, the Bible actually gives a far higher view than the dominant secular view today, which regards humans as simply complex computers made of meat—products of blind, naturalistic forces, without transcendent purpose or meaning.

We face disaster in education, both academic and moral, because we have forgotten God. It is impossible to expect a secularized system to do what can only be done under the blessing of God. And it is impudent to expect God to bless a secular system that refuses, as a matter of principle, to acknowledge Him in any way. "...in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight" (Proverbs 3:6). Do we really want Him to straighten out our educational paths, while reserving the right to be officially agnostic? C. S. Lewis spoke of a ghastly simplicity that afflicts the modern mind. He wrote that we remove the organ and demand the function. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings to be fruitful. Night after night public school students study textbooks that scrupulously avoid any mention of Christianity. Day after day they go to school to have their values clarified. King Absolute is dead, long live the relatives!

At its most basic level this too is part of Christian discipleship. It is learning to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God...the renewing of your mind...and we take captive every thought” (Romans 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 10:5). Augustine says the fourth stage on the journey to wisdom is resolution and strength--turning away from transitory things and fixing one’s affections on things eternal. Contemporary writers often refer to this process as practicing the spiritual disciplines. The spiritual disciplines train faithful obedience, the ordering of our whole selves, body and soul, unto the love of God and love of neighbor through the grace and power of Christ. On the proper ordering of loves, Augustine writes, “A man of just and holy life...keeps his affections under strict control, so that he neither loves what he ought not to love nor fails to love what he ought to love.” The Scriptures refer to the training of our bodies unto piety in 1 Timothy. “Exercise [gymnaze] yourself toward godliness [eusebeian]. For bodily exercise [Somatike gymnasia] profits a little, but godliness [eusebian] is profitable for all things” (1 Timothy 4:7-8, NKJV).

Here’s the question: Why would Christians be instructed to sing songs of praise and to consciously express thanksgiving to God, even in the midst of trials, difficulties, and uncertainties? The answer: Because the Christian philosophy understands the complex relationship between our minds, bodies, actions, and emotions. In line with the thoughtful Aristotelian tradition on emotions, the Old and New Testaments teach people to act in certain ways, knowing that cognitive and volitional choices not only reflect our emotions but also affect and educate them. As we engage in certain practices, both individually and corporately, they shape and form us. The liturgies and habits of the church educate our emotions in certain ways, giving articulation to and expression of certain emotional states, carrying us along with them even while our emotions may be more or less disordered and inadequately trained. We are commended to do things that include and are motivated by particular emotions, because there is a place for duty on the way to virtue. We educate our emotions through action, eventually finding the wholeness of body and soul.

If education is conceived as discipleship, what are the broad outlines of Christian discipleship, especially for the youngest members of the body? In a phrase, Jesus calls his followers to faithful obedience--to imitate him as he imitates the Father. He does not encourage them to employ “critical thinking” or to doubt everything. Instead he challenges them to repent, believe, and obey. “Faithful obedience,” as Lesslie Newbigin points out, is a different educational model from “theory and practice,” for it integrates the theory as a result of practice. Faithful presence precedes understanding, or as St. Anselm put it, Credo ut intelligam: “one believes in order to understand.”

“Politics” doesn’t have to be a negative word. Our word “politics” has its origins in something much more positive and constructive: the Greek philosophical reflection on how the Good should be worked out in society, in relationships between individuals, and in how to build a society that will inculcate flourishing and the Good Life for its citizens (Greek, politeia)....Hebrew tradition has summarized all of torah with two comprehensive required loves--love for God and love for neighbor (Deut. 6:4-5; Lev. 19:17-18). Forming a loving politeia is essential to life.