Thoughts on Christian Education

The aggrandizement of Christian faith for personal benefit and possession of knowledge is something of which I am very wary. I cringe, realizing that oftentimes, theology and Biblical information can be a tool for rampant self-inflation. Instead of bringing a person to their knees in awe of a largely, incomprehensible God at the reading of Thomas Aquinas, such things can become, in a sense, simple, scholarly tasks baptized under the almighty guise of ideal “Christian” education. Instead of beckoning humility, knowledge, when deemed “Christian,” somehow now has some spiritual accompanyment which supercedes other, “non-Christian” ideas. Instead of focusing on truth in a holistic way, the body of knowledge about God becomes praised over God himself, and Christian education over Christ. Such a subliminal undertone of possession of knowledge and superiority mocks the true purpose of education, advocated by the writer of Proverbs: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,” says Solomon. He later tells us, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil.” Hating evil is not hating ideas which do not fall under the deemed category of “Christian,” but ideas, actions, and injustices which impede upon the nature and person of Christ. True, structuralized, “Christian” education should be rooted in such an epistimology. But this only as a basis for education is fractured and incomplete. Only in a confrontation with others can we combat the plague of self-insulation. A Christian's true education is learning to exercise the will in abandoning self-interest, loving unreservedly for the benefit of another, without want for recompense. I can read all of the theology books in every theological library on the East Coast, and still would not know how to actively love my brother without wanting compensation. Herein is the profound irony in Christian education: we can only be taught other's experiences and ideas about God in a classroom environment, but interacting with God in a personal way, through others, is not something that happens through such vicarious observations.