Ken Smitherman, President, Association of Christian Schools International (retired 2009)
Have you ever been brought up short by a comment you heard? It might have occurred on the street or in a place where people were gathering and conversation was in motion. The topics might have ranged from those that reflect reckless moral abandon to the many ways a person can come to know his god.
I recall a dinner conversation that took place a few years ago with two international college students who were living in our home. At that particular time, two of our four daughters were away attending a Christian college. As we sat at the dinner table, we talked about spiritual matters and our personal relationship with Christ. Our two guests began talking about their own religious heritage—one they had relegated to a practice of ceremonially attending church at Christmas and Easter—sometimes. They explained that in their country, religion is really practiced only by the elderly.
As our conversation continued, they shared that they could understand why my wife Karen and I were religious—our interpretation was that we fit their definition of elderly, since we were, after all, in our forties. But what they could not understand was why our daughters were religious. To them, that simply did not make sense. In their culture it was a totally foreign concept for young people to vigorously pursue issues of religion, let alone Christianity.
From that conversation came the simple but clear realization that our story was not their story—but was, in fact, far removed from their world. And these differing realities are far too common in the world arena today.
“Once people stop believing in God, the problem is not that they will believe nothing; rather, the problem is that they will believe anything.”
—G. K. Chesterton
According to Michael Regele, author of Death of the Church, there was a time in world history when, at least in Western civilization, the concept involving separation of church and state was unthinkable because for many centuries, societies had an authoritative central belief system based on religious tradition. The truth of this belief system was unquestioned: it simply was. For example, you either worshiped God or Baal, and those who made any attempt to combine the two were shown no mercy. Culture and politics were governed by the prevailing religion, which, from the fourth century on, was Christianity carried forward through Roman Catholicism.
Around the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, this central belief system began to be undermined by Galileo and a host of other scientists who challenged the church’s Christian worldview, which was supported by the state and at least paid lip service by the general populace.
Christianity was a prevailing worldview and an influential force in the time of America’s founding. As early settlers in the New World, the Puritans prized the intellectual and spiritual life. Their ministers founded colleges and studied science and philosophy. They were the intellectual and spiritual authorities in the community. Christians were at the center of the marketplace of ideas. Their views were more than mere ideas. These Christ-centered views were the basis of their biblical lifestyles, which had a significant impact on the culture of the new nation. Now in the twenty-first century, our Christian story is often viewed with disdain, even mockery, and considered the realm of the weak and the powerless.
You are commended for choosing Christian schooling for your child(ren). Effective Christian schooling is not simply a process of adding chapel and Bible class to a traditional academic curriculum, but rather, its mission is to forge a new mind—a transformation that begins through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and is then nurtured and developed by deliberate and strategic integration of biblical truth into every curricular area. Christian schooling, then, confronts and challenges the fragmented secular worldview.
Our story may not be their story, but perhaps through faithfulness in the development of the spirit and the mind, our story may once again have an impact on the marketplace of ideas.
Our Story is Not Their Story 33.6