I’m excited to be teaching several Integrated Humanities courses, as well as Apologetics, at Logos Online School this year! I sent out this letter to the parents of my students, and thought it might be helpful for others who want know more about our approach to education.
Thank you for honoring us with the opportunity to partner with you in the education, training, and discipleship of your children. The Bible clearly commands parents to take the primary responsibility for the education of their children (Deuteronomy 6:1-4; Ephesians 6:1-4), and we always want to remind ourselves that we are here to serve you, with your delegated authority. As a father myself, I take this role and responsibility very seriously.
The curriculum used at Logos Online School is unique, although a similar curriculum is being used by hundreds of other schools across the world. It’s actually a time-tested way of educating our children, but one that has been forgotten in the modern world. We call it “classical Christian education.” There are different varieties and emphases in this movement, but something we all agree on is the importance of reading good books–and reading a lot of good books! Reading is somewhat counter-cultural in our world. Many people don’t read very much these days. Sadly, many Christians don’t even read their Bibles. I want to offer you some resources on the value of reading, and on our approach to education. I hope they are helpful for you.
The ultimate proof of our educational approach is in our graduates. I’ve taught in classical Christian schools for 20 years now, and I could go on and on about the amazing things our graduates go on to do. I could tell you how much more prepared they are for college. I could brag about the companies they work for, and the companies they’ve started. But, most importantly, they are equipped to defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ in an increasingly hostile world. They are motivated to serve the lost and the lonely, and to extend hope to the hopeless. That is the ultimate aim of our entire curriculum. We are “Christian” before we are “classical.”
We will read a variety of books, some of which have worldviews that are opposed to Christianity. Think of this as boot camp. We want our students to practice wrestling and sparring with the “Bad Guys” (and bad ideas) before they head out into the world, to pursue whatever God calls them to. We want to help them learn how to respond to some very powerful and seductive lies–lies that still entrance and delude millions of people all around us.
When we read the classics, the Great Books, we realize that there really is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). If you don’t embrace the truth of the Gospel, then you will believe the lies of Satan. And since Satan can’t really create anything original, he just keeps counterfeiting God’s truth in various different currencies. We want to train our students how to spot these counterfeit lies, guided by a deep grounding in the Truth.
In all of this, we want to approach all things in a Biblical way. The Bible shows us how depraved man can be without God. There are shocking and disturbing stories in the Bible. But, we do not dwell on them. They are there to show us humanity’s inability to save themselves. They are there to show us our deep need for God’s grace, love, and forgiveness. So as we read some of the classics of Western civilization, this will be our approach as well. We will not dwell on the ugliness, and we will be discreet and mature in our discussions. We will see that people always mess up, left to themselves. We will discover that humanity’s greatest achievements are always accompanied by massive failures.
We are here to serve you. Many other students have been through this curriculum, and are now contributing in all sorts of ways to the Kingdom, and to their communities. I hope the following resources are helpful as we begin this school year:
- Healthline – Benefits of Reading Books
- Video – Christian Education: The Classical Difference (1:38)
- Video – Good Soil: The Classical Difference (2:20)
- Integrated Humanities FAQs (or, “Do you really read all of those books?”) – Scott Postma
- What Do You Mean by “Integrated Humanities”? – Sandy Belschner
- What is Integrated Humanities? – Jake Litwin
Looking forward to a great year!
Gregory Soderberg
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash
Read the original article here.