The Bible tells us that what is required to enter the Kingdom of God is the simple faith of a child. So why should Christians pursue an academic education?
Because such an education is, in an important way, a means for us to come to have the simple faith of a child, says Jim Kushiner, the executive director of the Fellowship of St. James, publisher of Touchstone and Salvo magazines.
In the last five to ten minutes of his interview from last November on Ancient Faith Radio's "In the World" podcast, Kushiner explains his dynamic view of a Christian education. Because the culture has perceptibly and imperceptibly pervaded our habits of thinking, feeling, and acting, we need a thorough education to rid ourselves of false beliefs and come to knowledge of the truth.
An integrated education in philosophy, theology, the humanities, and the sciences, "gives people the tools to reclaim the Christian mind," to "detoxify and cleanse the mind," to "see the world through the eyes of Christ" rather than be "conformed to the world's mind." An education also allows us to "harvest the fruit" of the riches of the Christian tradition, the Fathers, the liturgy, and the hymnography of the Church. And because the world is created good, it is worthy of study and leads to greater knowledge of the Creator. Studying the glories of creation properly leads to a deep sense of wonder, "the workshop of worship."
This dynamic pairing of wonder and piety, prayer and scholarship, love and knowledge, this is the goal I seek as I educate my children (and continue to re-educate myself in the process).
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