Thinking about a new academic year always forces me to recall first principles and enduring truths:
"Our greatest inheritance, the very foundation of our civilization, is a marvel to behold and consider. If I tried to describe its rich legacy with utmost brevity, I should take the Latin word humanitas. It represents in the widest sense, the accumulated harvest of the ages, the fine flower of a long discipline of Christian thought. It is the Western mind of which we ought to turn our attentions to careful study." John Buchan
"Somehow, our whole approach to teaching and learning has gone awry. Do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible? Although we often succeed in teaching our pupils subjects, we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think. They learn everything except the art of learning." Dorothy Sayers
7 comments:
What a great, and a very timely, summary of the "things that matter most," as you so often remind us.
Amen, George. Unfortunately, we are in the process of dismantling the foundation of our civilization . Our government schools -- already on life-support -- are currently receiving their death blow. Sorry to be so negative and political, but the Church seems to be asleep on the job when it comes to watchguarding our steadily disappearing liberty.
Education is more than what is taught in government schools. When it comes to the church, a greater issues than political involvement I believe is education in relation to faith. What do we believe? Why do we believe it? Where does this faith come from? Many who oppose Christianity do so out of ignorance - which is understandable, though lamentable. Yet so many within the church believe with ignorance - and this belief is only as strong as the day is long.
If I may beg to differ with Mr. Scott--
The foundation of our civilization is not, as I am assuming you to believe from the links you placed, our civil liberties. Rather, the foundation of our civilization is in the Gospel. "Freedom" (or any behaviour of civil government, even self-restraint) is not our saviour....Christ is.
The church does not have the job of watchguarding our liberty...the church's first job is to repent of her sins (pulling the beam out of her own eye before looking for the specks in the eye of the state), so that she can speak a "Thus sayeth the Lord God of Hosts" to the state when needed.
As a completely different comment: The RSS link on the run blog links to the feed for WilburBlog instead of the RunBlog. Maybe this can be fixed?
America is great because she is good. She is good because for a time she received most of her education not in a classroom, but rather arrayed around the throne.
By the way...it was my heart growing with love for Jesus and understanding of His humanitas in a Franklin Fellowship Sunday School classroom. I love you Bannockburn!
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